Before Alola
by shaunathan
Summary: A take on what a Kanto-centric prologue to the Sun and Moon arc could be like, should one ever happen.
1. Chapter 1

A cool wind rustled the leaves in the bushes and trees, creating a sound like a wave washing to shore. A creek gurgled along, the water swirling and breaking around stones jutting from the bed to the surface. In the distance, a waterfall rumbled as the creek grew larger and wider until it eventually reached the precipice and crashed down upon itself, creating a fine mist.

Amid nature's symphony, Yellow's pencil made a scratching noise as she drew it across the paper of her sketchbook, trying to capture the image before her. When she shifted her grip on the pencil and used its smoother sides to shade in a tree, it made a swooshing sound similar to the leaves. Then it returned to scratching as she readjusted her grip on it and began to trace outlines again.

This was one of Yellow's favorite hobbies: wandering the Viridian Forest until she found some angle she'd never seen before, then capturing it to the best of her ability in her art. Without much else to do, she found herself in this position more days than not. At this point she probably had enough sketches to make an art book. She wondered whether anyone would look at it, or if she'd ever have the courage to publish it in the first place. Probably not, she decided.

As she finished another tree and moved on to a rock cluster she'd drawn many times before, but never from this angle, she let her thoughts wander and her hand go on autopilot.

First her mind drifted to the subject of her uncle. He'd been on a voyage for several months now, in search of a huge water Pokemon. She wondered whether he'd return soon. Then again, she considered, it honestly didn't much matter at this point. After she'd turned 17 a year ago, he'd allowed her to move out on her own and into her parents' small house on the outskirts of Viridian City, which he'd been looking after until she was old enough to claim it as her own. Yellow had been surprised to learn that her parents had left their house to her in their wills, especially since she'd been only two years old when they'd died, but she was happy to have it nonetheless.

Deciding that her uncle would come back eventually, as he always did, her thoughts turned to her friends, since, much like her uncle, they'd been away for a while. Green had been gone the longest. He'd set out two months ago to a faraway region called Kalos to look into some strange issues that had arisen there concerning one of the region's "legendary" Pokemon. Yellow didn't fully understand the situation, but she did recall him talking about the importance of "Z" and practicing some sort of funny language before he'd left. She wondered if he'd solved the problems yet, and if he'd be back soon.

Blue had disappeared more recently, and Red at the same time. Unlike with Green, Yellow didn't have any inkling of why they'd left. She supposed it made sense that they would leave the Viridian/Pallet area, since Blue often travelled to other cities and towns in search of a rich market for some device she'd constructed, and since Red occasionally left with no warning to take on a challenger or search for strong Pokemon to battle, but it didn't add up that they'd disappear on the exact same day. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but something told Yellow otherwise.

Then again, she didn't have much evidence to go on either way. She hadn't had contact with any of her fellow Dexholders since after Green left. There hadn't been much need, and a part of Yellow enjoyed the isolation. She visited the city when she needed to restock on groceries or pencils, but otherwise she spent most of her days in the forest fishing, Pokemon-watching, or, as she was right now, drawing nature.

The other part of Yellow, however, and this was the part that was beginning to take precedence, wished she was able to talk to her friends. This part of her felt the loneliness of her isolation greatly. She found herself thinking with increasing frequency how nice it would be to hear her friends' voices, or to just read a message from them. Many times in the past few weeks the idea had occurred to her to make a run to the Pokemon Center to record a video message for her friends, or to write them letters. A few times she'd even made it as far as scribbling _Dear Red,_ on a sheet of paper, before coming to her senses and realizing how silly, or perhaps even annoying, it would be for her friends, if they were actually dealing with a serious situation, if they found a message or letter from her simply desiring conversation. She didn't want to bother them with her loneliness, and so she resigned herself.

The sound of rocks shifting in the creek snapped Yellow out of her thoughts and back to reality. She hadn't realized how long she'd been zoned out, but the ache in her drawing hand told her it had been at least half an hour and maybe more. She held her pencil in her mouth and cracked her knuckles to attempt to alleviate the fatigue, looking down at what she'd drawn while unfocused.

With a start, she found that she'd drawn something, or rather some _one_ , that wasn't there. She felt a flush of embarrassment when she realized she'd slipped into her old habit of drawing Red. After he'd saved her from that Dratini nine years ago, she'd found herself drawing him, both consciously and unconsciously. More recently, though, she'd been making a serious effort to draw other things instead, after looking through her old sketches and finding that a disproportionately large amount of them were of him. After all, how would he react if he somehow got his hands on her sketchbook and found that nearly all of her drawings were of him?

Yellow thought she'd finally kicked the habit, but here he was on the page in front of her, standing in an athletic pose, pointing forward at something off the page as if he was commanding an unseen Pokemon in a tough battle. She imagined she could almost hear him, and that made her feel her loneliness even more heavily.

A long sigh escaped her lips as she stowed her pencil in her pocket and closed her sketchbook on the drawing. It wasn't a ruined picture by any means, but her hand, and now her heart, hurt. She didn't feel like doing anything more right now. Perhaps she would pick it up again tomorrow.

She paused and took another moment to enjoy the view. The lively greenness of the leaves, the clear water of the creek, glinting with reflection of the sunlight... perhaps it was personal bias, but Yellow considered the forest to which she was so closely tied to be the most beautiful place on earth.

Then a chill ran down her spine, as if the temperature had dropped thirty degrees in an instant, though the climate remained just as it had been. The back of her neck prickled. Something was wrong. Something was happening that the forest didn't like.

A humming... no, more a buzzing... gradually filled her ears. She wondered for a moment whether it was a swarm of Beedrill. It wasn't uncommon for them to gather around this time of day. The thought crossed her mind to call out Chuchu for protection, but something about the buzzing kept her hand from drawing a pokeball. She recalled the dull drone of the recently renovated Power Plant she'd visited on Route 10, and concluded that this was the same sort of noise. Not natural, but electrical.

Yellow briefly entertained the thought that this was just a gathering of Pikachu, charging the air with electricity. It wasn't impossible; she'd stumbled across one several times before. But then why did she feel such anxiety?

Stowing away her sketchbook, Yellow got to her feet and adjusted her straw hat. She determined the direction in which the buzzing was loudest, and set off at a jog towards it.

Yellow shared an interesting connection with the Viridian Forest she'd grown up in. It was more than just a home to her. It was quite literally a part of her, as much as the blood pulsing in her veins. Its power was her own, yet also its weakness. When the forest was strong, so was she, but when it was sickly, she was too.

Every so often a child was inexplicably born of the forest–not _in_ , but _of_ –, possessing this strange gift, this peculiar curse. Yellow was one of those children. She had the ability to heal, just as the forest, though the ability was not without its cost. She recalled a brief bout of serious depression she had experienced one winter when a large part of the forest died from frost. She'd drifted through the days, despondent, barely eating or sleeping, because she couldn't see the point, until the dead land began to feel the beginnings of new life, grass stalks popping up and the seeds of new trees beginning to stir under the earth, and her mood improved overnight. The forest was her strength, her home, but also her liability.

Another child with this unsought connection was Lance, who Yellow had defeated seven years ago. The very thought of him chilled her so much she missed a step, and she stumbled before continuing towards the noise. Lance was her demon, even these many years after his death. Many nights she woke up in a cold sweat from a nightmare about what would have happened should she have failed to stop him that day. But even more terrifying to her was how close the connection they shared was, and how easily she could have become him, had it not been for her chance encounter nine years ago with Red, when he had given her the advice that had shaped her into the person she was today. As many nightmares as she had about the bloodshed Lance would have caused it he had succeeded, just as many were filled with her seeing the destruction and terror all around, and then looking down to find that it was _her_ hands that were soaked with blood.

Shaking her head, Yellow dug her fingernails deep into her palms to call herself back to reality. It didn't do to dwell on nightmares, especially those. Besides, the buzzing had grown louder. She was drawing close to the source.

A few moments later, the small Dexholder felt the prickling on her spine, which had intensified as the sound had grown louder, spike like it was screaming. Something was strange, and it was very close. The thought occurred that she should be quiet and stay hidden, and so she crouched close to the ground and carefully pushed aside the branches of a bush blocking her path. The more she cleared away the foliage, the more electric her skin felt. Whatever was causing such a disturbance to the forest had to be on the other side of this leafy wall.

She drew back her hands as she felt them protrude into the open air, and pleaded silently that whoever or whatever lurked behind the bush wall hadn't seen her. After a good ten seconds the noise hadn't changed, nor had anything burst out to attack her for intruding, so she assumed it was safe and pushed her face into the foliage, stopping this time an inch or two before she exposed herself.

On the other side of the bush was a man, probably in his thirties, and a Pokemon. Yellow's attention went first to the man, since humans were most out of place in the forest.

The first impression Yellow got of him was his eyes. They were sunken into his face and outlined with dark circles, presumably from lack of sleep. They stared with an empty, manic focus, and Yellow felt rather relieved they were not trained on her. There was something uncannily inhuman about the, She got the distinct impression that she was staring at the eye sockets of a skull rather than the eyes of a man.

The next thing she noticed was his shock of white hair, which made her reconsider her assessment of his age, though she eventually changed it back to her initial evaluation when she realized it was dyed from the natural black his sideburns retained. It was thick, bushy, and long. Yellow figured it must be gelled, since it stuck out instead of settling naturally.

His clothes seemed fit for a man half his age, and, as he was not half his age, gave him the air of a street gang member, and the gold chain around his neck, holding an intriguing golden pendant, gold watch clamped on his wrist, and oddly shaped gold sunglasses accentuated the impression. His face, while handsome, was marred with an angular, cruel expression that screamed: DANGER.

Next her eyes flitted to the Pokemon, and she nearly gave up her cover doing a double take when she fully registered what she was seeing. The Pokemon was tall, six feet at least and probably more, and large. It seemed to have an exoskeleton, similar to a Heracross, but that was where the similarities ended. The strange creature balanced its massive frame on two legs, yet it had two more smaller, less developed ones hanging higher up its sides, as though ribs were protruding from it. Its face was simple: two beady eyes staring out from an armored head and tendril/mandible-like protrusions where Yellow presumed its mouth was. Its two massive arms, with spikes at the end in place of fingers, hung from its "shoulders." Its back had a natural bend, not dissimilar to a large wave, such that it seemed to be constantly looming.

Yellow, now curious, took out her Pokedex (carefully, such that she didn't make any noise) in the vain hope that she might be able to identify it. Perhaps it was a further evolution of Kabutops, undiscovered until now. It did share some similar features to the fossil Pokemon. Hitting the mute button, she held up the Pokedex and let it scan the strange creature before her. She wasn't surprised, however, to see that it had no better idea of what this Pokemon was than she did. This _was_ one of the oldest Pokedexes in existence: Red's original device that he'd given to her during an adventure a few years ago. That kind gesture still gave her a warm, happy feeling inside every time she used the Pokedex. Stowing the device away, she decided she would sketch this unfamiliar Pokemon for Professor Oak at some point and see if he knew what it was.

She turned her attention back to the man. He seemed to slouch, even though he was standing, and looked down at a strange device in his hand. At first Yellow assumed it was a Pokedex, but closer inspection proved her wrong. Instead of the folding design of a Pokedex, the device more resembled a handheld calculator with two short metal rods extending from the far end. Yellow squinted to get a better look at its buttons, but she couldn't see anything more from her current vantage point.

"Come on!"

The man's voice took Yellow by surprise, making her twitch and nearly give away her position. She'd been so focused on making observations that she'd nearly forgotten that the things she observed could move and speak.

His voice was angry, and he shook the device like he was attempting to strangle it. "Work, dang it!"

The device was unimpressed with his command. It continued to spit out static noise.

The man's skeletal eyes narrowed in a deathly scowl. "Worthless piece of junk! I don't know why I thought this would do anything in the first place." He now addressed his Pokemon, which inclined its head in what could have either been a nod of agreement or the first warning sign that it was about to attack–Yellow couldn't tell.

The man hammered one of the buttons with an angry finger. "I swear if this doesn't start getting results soon," he growled. "I'm gonna curb stomp it until–"

Yellow never found out the extent to which the man would curb stomp the device, since he was interrupted when the static buzz suddenly changed to a high-pitched, ethereal whistling that sent chills up her spine. When the sound shifted, the man shifted as well. He grinned menacingly, the manic light in his eyes intensifying. "Sick. _Now_ we're getting somewhere."

Casting his eyes upward, he pointed the end of the device with the metal rods into the air in front of him, and pressed a button near its base.

Yellow's eyes widened in confused terror as a florescent blue light shimmered into existence in the air where the man pointed the device. It pulsed with greenish blue waves like ripples on a ruptured surface of water and grew, taking the shape of a crack, as though there was something struggling to break through the very air. The man's grin widened. "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!"

Yellow heard more bone-chilling whistling, and was shocked to hear that it was no longer coming through the device, but from the crack in the sky. And more terrifying than that was that it now sounded clearer, like whatever was making it was just on the other side of the crack, struggling to burst through.

The whistling intensified, and Yellow became struck with how much it sounded like the angry wailing of a ghost. At that thought, her throat constricted with panic. Could the thing making the noise be the ghost of Lance, come to take vengeance on her just like in her innumerable nightmares? There were so many ghost Pokemon... was it really so hard to believe that her demon had found a way back to torture her in her waking hours as well as her sleeping? The nightmarish idea made her want to curl up and lie in the fetal position, but her limbs were too seized with terror to oblige, and so she sat there, petrified, unable to turn her attention away from the scene, feeling cold and utterly alone in her terror.

She almost didn't notice when the crack in the sky vanished and the whistling faded back into electrical static. She almost didn't notice when the man cursed and glared at the device. "So close, but not stable enough! Ugh! Fine. I'll try again tomorrow. Come on, Goliath." She almost didn't notice when the man shut off the device and stopped the noise completely, and when he left the area along with his Pokemon and vanished into the thick foliage.

Eventually, though, Yellow did fully return to her senses, shoving her terror as deep inside herself as possible–the only way it was possible to bear. She rose to her feet, feeling sick in the pit of her stomach, and knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she had to stop that man, because whatever was on the other side of that couldn't be any good for the forest.

 _But..._

Her hands trembled as the horrible fear rose up in her throat again when she thought of the eerie whistling noise that she knew would haunt her nightmares for years to come. She couldn't possibly do this alone, not when at any moment she could be swallowed by terror, or, worse, come face to face with the vengeful ghost of Lance. She needed help.

Swallowing hard (for her throat had become quite dry), Yellow drew the Pokegear she'd gotten a few years ago, though she only used it for emergencies, and slowly forced her shaking hands to type a number.

The person she'd called picked up on the second ring. Yellow gripped the Pokegear tight with both trembling hands in a vain attempt to steady them. "Blue, something's wrong. I need your help."


	2. Chapter 2

Yellow's night was sleepless. She'd spent the hours between sunset and sunrise lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling and trying desperately to clear her head of what she'd witnessed. The few times she'd managed to drift off, her dreams had been stormed with eerie wailing, ghostly figures, and bloody hands.

She gripped the mug of coffee on the table before her with both hands, squeezing it tight to soak in its warmth, and ground herself to reality, with minimal effect. Yellow didn't often drink coffee, but she was sure that if she didn't get caffeine in her system today, she was liable to collapse. She suspected that if she had to use her healing powers, she might end up comatose.

She closed her eyes (always a dangerous gamble–she never knew what she might see) and ran through yesterday's phone call.

Yellow had called Blue, her friend and somewhat-former-employer, because she'd been the first to spring to mind when Yellow had realized she needed help.

Blue had almost instantly agreed to come back to Viridian. "Of course I'll come!" she'd exclaimed. "If you need help, I'll be there as soon as possible." A pause had followed during which Blue must have noticed the quaver in Yellow's voice, or else the shakiness of her breathing, because she had asked, hesitantly, "Yellow, are you okay?"

It had been Yellow's turn for a pause. Her fears and doubts had swum around in her mind until ultimately, she'd decided, "I don't know. I honestly don't."

Blue had gone silent for a moment, then said, "Right. I can get there by tomorrow. Whatever's going on, just try to hold out until then, okay?"

Yellow had agreed, though more mechanically than sincerely, and the two had hung up.

Back in the present, Yellow opened her eyes. Her hands were numb; the coffee had gone cold without her even realizing it.

She forced herself to stomach the liquid and stand, and then went about preparing to set out for the day. She changed from her pajamas to her normal day wear, pulled on her boots, clipped her belt around her waist, making sure her Pokémon were okay, packed her fishing rod and a few miscellaneous items, and tucked her hair inside her hat as she went out the door.

The walk to where she had arranged to meet Blue wasn't far, though it felt like an eternity to Yellow. The Forest with which she shared to intrinsic a bond had become fearful and foreign. The wind in the trees sounded uncannily like ghostly whistling. At every turn she thought she saw a portal in the air. Behind every tree she imagined a pale figure with hollow eyes drifting towards her, hands raised to grab her, drag her beneath the earth...

When she reached the meeting place, the same clearing where Red had rescued her from the wild Dratini years earlier, she found Blue already waiting there, and with company. Waiting along with her were Red and Green. Despite her tiredness and paranoia, Yellow's heart involuntarily skipped a beat when she saw Red. He hadn't changed since he'd left, aside for a few fresh scrapes that told he'd recently been adventuring.

Green had acquired a cape since he'd left, like the one he'd had when Yellow had first met him, but more tattered, as though he'd been in a few dangerous situations while wearing it. He and Blue, who hadn't changed much since Yellow had last seen her, were bickering, with Red watching them like a tennis match.

"I don't understand why _I_ have to be here," Green snapped. "I was dealing with important business in Kalos, and you and Red are perfectly capable of handling this on your own."

"Yellow is our _friend_ ," Blue shot back, just as agitated. "If she needs help, it's only right that we all should be there for her–even you."

Green crossed his arms. "Perhaps, but how bad could this 'problem' possibly be that all four of us would need to address it?"

Blue scowled. "Gee, I don't know. Perhaps it's another world-ending calamity? It's not like we haven't seen those before. Or maybe Team Rocket's resurging again. We just met Giovanni; it's possible."

Green rolled his eyes. "There's no winning with you, is there?"

"Not a chance."

"Fine. She's here, by the way."

Yellow had been standing apart from the three other Dexholders, not wanting to interrupt, but now they noticed her. Blue's face broke out into a smile. "Yellow!" she exclaimed, rushing over and wrapping her in a big hug. "It feels like I haven't seen you in forever!"

Yellow didn't return the embrace, too unfocused to register that she should. "It hasn't been that long, only a few weeks," she said.

Blue released her, chuckling. "I know, I know. It's always good to see you again, though." Her expression suddenly turned utterly serious. "Okay, what's going on? Are you okay?" she asked in barely more than a whisper, such that Red and Green couldn't hear her.

Yellow blinked, surprised at her friend's sudden mood change. "Maybe," she whispered, matching Blue's volume. "I'll tell you guys about it in a minute."

Blue nodded sharply. Then in an instant she was laughing as though Yellow had just told her the funniest joke, and Yellow came to the realization that she hadn't told Red or Green just how shaken up their junior Dexholder had been during the call yesterday.

Red came over as well, a warm smile on his face. Yellow felt the urge to smile back at him, as she always felt when around him, but couldn't bring herself to do it. "Hey," he greeted her. "How's it going, man?"

At his words, Yellow's pulse quickened in irritation, and she replied curtly, "Fine."

Red looked almost as taken aback as she was at her cold response. _'Why did I do that?'_ she thought, almost panicking. _'He just said "hi." What's wrong with me?'_ Her stomach twisted at Red's hurt expression. "Oh," he muttered, not meeting her eye. "That's good."

Blue shot her a mystified look that clearly asked, 'What was that about?' Yellow hoped her face conveyed how confused she was about her own actions and how terrible she felt for them. All she could guess was that something in her cesspool of muddled emotions and fears must have bubbled up at the wrong time, and she'd ended up lashing out. Yet guesswork didn't cause her stomach to unknot.

An apology rolled to the tip of her tongue, but refused to move any farther. Her heart hurt to see him hurt, and yet she couldn't bring herself to make reparations. Again she asked herself, _'What's wrong with me?'_ for this wasn't like her at all, and yet she found no good answer.

Blue cleared her throat while her mind was still racing to find an explanation– _any_ explanation–for her behavior, and said, "Sorry it took us so long to get here–it was a bit of a long journey. Red was with in Hoenn with me, so we had to come all the way from there _and_ pick up Green from Kalos."

So Blue and Red disappearing at the same time _hadn't_ just been a coincidence, Yellow realized. They'd gone to Hoenn together. But what had they been doing there that they'd had to rush off from home with so little announcement? Why was Red in Hoenn with Blue specifically? _'And more importantly,'_ an unbidden voice in her head whispered. _'Why wasn't_ I _the one there with him?'_

Green cleared his throat. "Speaking of how we had to leave what we were doing to come help, would you mind telling us what we've all rushed here about?"

Yellow blinked as the three senior Dexholders gave her their attention, and nearly jumped in surprise when she realized she couldn't stay in her thoughts any longer. "Oh, right." She clasped her hands in front of her in a manner she hoped seemed nonchalant, and was startled to find that she gripped them so tight that her knuckles turned white. Somehow, even with her friends–three very strong Pokémon trainers each capable of going toe to toe with some of the most powerful foes around–present, her nerves were undiminished. "Er... so you all know about the connection I have with the Viridian Forest, right?"

They gave various signs of confirmation.

"Well, something is going on in the Forest–something weird–and the Forest doesn't like it."

Green raised an eyebrow. "Is that it? 'Something weird?' Why did you ask for help if you don't even know what it is?"

Blue glared at him. "Perhaps because a lot of the time when 'something weird' is going on with Viridian, it's a bigger issue. We're all from Kanto, so it concerns all of us." She turned her gaze on Yellow, her eyes softening. "Do you know what it is?"

That was precisely the question Yellow was trying to figure out how to answer. How was she going to phrase it? ' _Some guy is opening rips in the sky_ '? ' _A man with a Pokémon I've never seen before is using a machine to make holes that whistle_ '? ' _I'm going out of my mind with fear that a guy I'm pretty sure I killed seven years ago is coming to get revenge on me from beyond the grave_ '? Nothing she ran through sounded right. And now the seconds of her silence were sliding down her spine like chilled water. _4... 5... 6... 7..._

"Portals," she blurted suddenly, then bit her tongue. Whatever kind of answer she'd been trying to give, that certainly hadn't been it.

"Portals...?" Red asked hesitantly. (Yellow's stomach clenched again when she saw that he was still looking anywhere but her eyes.) "What sort of portals are we talking about here?"

"Er..." Yellow hesitated, trying to remember what she'd seen yesterday. She found it difficult to recall the portals themselves, since every time she thought of them, her mind's eye was swallowed with shrill whistling, breaking her concentration. Eventually, she settled on, "It was sort of like a... a crack in a wall. Half-formed, really, like it was supposed to be a full hole, but it wasn't finished."

Green raised a skeptical eyebrow. "What was on the other side? Did you see or hear anything?"

 _'Hear anything?'_ The question made Yellow's stomach turn again. Yes, she'd heard something. High-pitched wailing that made her want to hide and never come back out. The answer rose to her throat, but died there. She knew that telling her friends would make her terror ten times worse. If it was only in her head, it might not be real. But the moment she voiced it, it would be undeniable. "N-no," she replied, as confidently as she could muster. "Nothing."

Her tone must have wavered. Green raised an eyebrow, looking unconvinced, though he merely grunted and said nothing. Blue's lips tightened in a concerned frown. Obviously she too wasn't totally satisfied with Yellow's answers. Red still stared at an area somewhere upward of Yellow's eyes, and she got the feeling that he was looking at her hat. His expression betrayed some of the same concern as Blue's, but was otherwise illegible. Whatever he thought of Yellow's cold, abrupt 'fine' was still a mystery.

Blue broke the gathering silence, clapping her hands together energetically and attempting to clear the gloomy atmosphere with a smile. "Right then, we're all caught up on the situation! The portal thing happened later in the day yesterday, so it's probably not going to happen again today for a few more hours. That means we've got a bit of time on our hands. It's, what..." she checked a watch on her left wrist. "10:27? Why don't we go get an early lunch and catch up and make some plans?"

Red glanced over and nodded (Yellow noticed with another twist of the guilty knife in her stomach that he looked Blue straight in the eyes). "Sure, that sounds good. I'm starving."

"You just ate two hours ago," Green scoffed.

Red shrugged. "I'm a growing boy–I need food."

Blue rolled her eyes. "So we're all good for lunch, then?" She raised an eyebrow, glancing at Yellow.

The Healer was so queasy that she didn't see how she could possibly eat anything, but despite that, her stomach still involuntarily growled at the prospect of food, and she realized with a shock that, without meaning to, she'd skipped breakfast. "Yeah, okay."

Blue grinned. "Great! I know this great place that has hamburgers and stuff. Let's go!"

A brief walk later, the four Dexholders were in Viridian City, and at the restaurant Blue had spoken of. Despite living in the Viridian area since she'd been born, Yellow had never seen this place before. Most of her visits into the city had been restricted to the general store and occasionally the Poke Mart (though she didn't really need items all that often), and she supposed she must have overlooked this place until now.

Service was slow, giving the four time to talk. Green told them about his recent exploits in the Kalos region, where they spoke the language he'd been practicing, involving two new Dexholders and a whole host of unfamiliar Pokémon. Yellow tried to listen attentively and comprehend what he was talking about, but the mixture of her own confused thoughts and utter unfamiliarity with the subject matter left her with as much knowledge when Green finished his long story as when he'd started.

The food came after this. Yellow, who usually didn't eat much meat, had this time ignored the salad entirely and obeyed the empty pit in her stomach and ordered a large hamburger and a milkshake, which Blue had advised her were excellent. When it arrived, though, she began to wonder whether the empty feeling was truly hunger. After two bites, she found she was having trouble bringing herself to eat any more–even though the burger was incredibly tasty.

The milkshake presented the same problem–though it was delicious, she was unable to force herself to finish it–so after a few sips she began absentmindedly stirring it with her straw and listening to Blue and Green debate back and forth about the best choice of action, seemingly independent of any information she could offer.

"We should watch the same area–if it happened there before, it's likely to happen there again," Blue insisted.

"That's naive," Green countered. "The Viridian Forest is tens of square miles large. It's not that easy to predict where something like that is going to happen, especially with only one know instance to go off of."

"And what if the portals only open in that spot?" Blue suggested. "Who says they have to be in different parts of the forest?"

"Who says they have to be in the forest at all?" Green rolled his eyes, exasperated. "This is just conjecture without any empirical backup!"

"And since when has my conjecture ever been wrong?"

"Do you _want_ me to bring out the tally sheet for that? Because I _will_ bring it out."

At this point, Yellow stopped listening. Whenever those two started arguing like this, the conversation–whatever it had been about–was effectively over. She'd give it a few minutes, she decided, and then intervene if they hadn't made up by then.

She turned to Red, whose sole focus had so far been, and still was, his hamburger–the largest the restaurant had to offer. As he devoured the last of it in ravenous bites, she again wondered how high his metabolism had to be to eat like this and still keep in shape.

Summoning up her resolve and trying to push the lingering guilty feeling (as well as her mild nausea) to the back of her stomach, Yellow attempted a conversational, 'So.' The word encountered an unexpected, nonphysical blockage in her throat, however, and the resultant sound was little more than a noncommittal lisp.

It was enough, however, to catch Red's attention. He paused, looking up at her (the guilty feeling lessened when she realized he was now making eye contact), set down the little that was left of his burger, swallowed, and asked, "Sorry, what was that?"

Resisting the urge to brush it off as 'nothing' and lapse back into uncomfortable silence, Yellow asked the question she'd meant in the first place, "Uh... so, how was Hoenn?"

Red's face broke out in a broad smile, obviously eager to recount his adventures. "Oh jeez, it was a lot. First Bill's place got wrecked back here after he was doing some research on Deoxys, and we tracked the guys who did it all the way to Hoenn, and it turned out it was the Team Aqua and Magma leaders, Archie and Maxie–you remember them, right?"

Yellow blinked, trying to bring mental images of the two men in question to mind. With the rest of the thoughts swirling about inside her head, it was rather difficult. She managed to recall a strange suit of armor and an incident involving ultimate moves and a legendary water type. "Yeah... I think."

"Well they were using Kyogre and Groudon, and then they used Mega Evolution, and then Blue and I used Mega Evolution, and there was something about an ancient dragon people, and Sapphire and Ruby were there, and there was a giant meteorite that was going to hit, and..." He paused, breathless, his hands in the air from how he'd been using them to illustrate his story. "And I'm honestly not really sure of everything that happened, but I know it involved Rayquaza."

Yellow felt the urge to smile at his enthusiasm. Seeing him this excited always made her want to do that. However, this time she failed to actualize the expression. "Sounds fun," she said.

Red grinned. "Yeah. It was incredible."

A moment of awkward silence followed before he asked, "So... uh, how have you been, man?"

Yellow felt another rush of sudden agitation course through her veins. "Fine," she answered coldly, her eyes hardening. "Just fine."

Immediately her insides twisted with panic, confusion, and guilt as Red's smile faltered and his eyes shifted from hers to her hat. "Ah. Good," he said tonelessly.

Yellow felt as though she wanted a hole to open the ground and swallow her up, or else to wake up and realize the day so far had only been another nightmare. ' _What's WRONG with me?!_ ' she demanded of herself, but no answer presented itself.

She suddenly felt very sick, and stood up. "I... have to go to the bathroom," she muttered quickly, wheeled around so fast she nearly knocked her chair over, and made a beeline for the restrooms.

Thankfully the restroom was empty, or else there may have been an unpleasant scene, for Yellow didn't bother knocking before shoving the door open. Locking it behind herself, she stumbled over to the sink and gripped the edges tight.

She stared up into the mirror. Her skin was pale, either from her nausea or the panic that clenched her stomach with an iron grip–possibly both. "What's happening to me?" she demanded of her mirror-self. "Why am I acting like this?"

Her reflection was silent.

' _I've never been mean to Red like this before,_ ' she thought, squeezing her eyes shut and attempting to close her ears to the noise from outside the locked door. ' _Why is it different now? He hasn't done anything weird–so why am I?_ ' Her chest tightened as if she had heartburn, and she took deep breaths to try to calm her system.

Nothing added up. A million explanations rose to her mind to reason away her agitation, but fell just as quickly, for none of them held up. It felt as though she was grasping at straws–as though there _was_ no explanation, until her grip landed on something of substance–thin substance, but substance nonetheless.

' _I'm eighteen,_ ' she thought slowly. ' _My uncle has talked to me about how... how people my age sometimes have emotions that are hard to control and explain because of hormones. Maybe... maybe it's just that?_ '

Just hormones. The explanation didn't sit well with her knotted stomach, or her pained heart, and yet it was entirely reasonable. Perhaps the reason it wasn't sitting well with her was because of yet more hormones. It made sense, even if she didn't like it.

"Just hormones," she muttered. "Just... hormones..."

A minute or two passed during which Yellow stared down at the drain of the sink, her mind, despite the whirlpool of thoughts and feelings thrashing about inside it, managed to bring nothing to the forefront. "Just hormones."

Suddenly she stood up straight. Despite how vehemently her guilty conscience insisted there had to be another, better explanation for her actions, this would have to do. She twisted the metal doorknob, sending shivers through her system (she supposed she'd gotten the chills), and reentered the dining floor.

As she approached the table, Blue and Green looked up at her, while Red resumed staring at her hat.

"Hey. Are you okay?" Blue asked, her expression concerned.

Yellow drew a shaky breath. She hesitated for too long, then said, "Y-yeah."

Blue was obviously unconvinced–sometimes Yellow despised her friend's ability to see through her–though she didn't press the issue. "We've decided that we're going to head back to the place where you saw the portal right away instead of waiting–if you think that's a good idea," she added hastily.

Yellow took a moment to register what Blue had said, and agreed without thinking. "Yeah. That's good."

Blue smiled. "Excellent. Let's go, then. Green, you're paying."

Green glared at her as though he wanted to argue, then took a deep breath and grumbled, "Fine."

One payment later, and the four were on their way out of the restaurant. As they walked through town, headed toward the forest, Yellow shot a glance at Red, who was currently looking everywhere but in her direction.

' _Just hormones,_ ' she told herself as her stomach twisted and her heart ached. ' _Just hormones._ '


	3. Chapter 3

They arrived at the forest at around 2 o'clock. Yellow felt her frayed nerves begin to constrict her chest as she looked at the looming trees. The woods now seemed as shadowy and threatening as the day she had been attacked by a Dratini. In the quietness, the rustle of the wind through the trees morphed, turning into ghostly whistling that chilled her to the bone. The leafy expanse that was once her anchor now shifted frightfully. Her forest was turned against her.

"Yellow, what's wrong?"

Yellow blinked at the sound of Blue's voice. Quite without meaning to, she'd stopped in her tracks, staring at the trees before her, to unsettled to even continue walking.

"Oh," she said, breaking her eyes from the trance and attempting a reassuring smile that stopped short at a pained grimace. "Nothing. Just thinking."

Blue frowned, obviously unconvinced. "Right. Well, if you're really okay, then seeing as you're the only one who knows where we're going..."

Yellow blinked. "Oh, right." Somehow it hadn't registered until now that she would have to lead her friends back to where she had seen the strange man, the unknown Pokémon, and the phantasmagoric portal. Perhaps she had unthinkingly decided that if she didn't acknowledge the place existed, it might not be real. If she didn't lead them to it, it might be simply a figment of her imagination, an extension of her nightmares.

But now she recalled the experience in vivid, mortifying detail. Despite her desperate hope that she might have forgotten the clearing where her night terrors had merged with her reality, she knew exactly where she had to go, the memory seared into her mind like a bright light into retinas. "Yeah... um... follow me."

And so they did. The route wasn't very long. A few times Yellow tried to slow down, to delay the moment when she'd have to confront the clearing again, or else to take a slight detour to elongate the distance, but no matter how hard she tried to break her pace, her feet remained resolutely on the path she'd walked yesterday, and her speed stayed constant. It was as though there was an invisible magnetic force pulling her towards the spot. Once or twice it crossed her mind that she might be possessed.

The journey was complete long before Yellow wanted it to be. Feeling as though she was forcing herself to move through gelatin, and ignoring that every molecule of her body was screaming at her to turn back and run and never stop running, a command that she would have gladly obeyed if she'd been delusional enough to think she could outrun a phantom, she approached the same bush she'd poked her head through the day before and came to a dead stop, listening intently. The others seemed to catch on and fell silent as well.

Silence reigned for a few moments, save for the eerie whistling of the wind through the trees. Yellow's heart pounded hopefully. Perhaps, for some reason or another, the man had left, and taken his portals with him. Perhaps the threat was gone, and she and the forest were safe. But the chills on her spine didn't go away, and moments later she felt her fingertips go numb as electric buzzing drifted through the foliage from the other side of the bush.

Swallowing with difficulty, she looked back at her fellow Dexholders and motioned for them to follow her example, mouthing, "Slowly."

She knelt down and gently shifted the leaves of the bush, careful to make it sound like no more than the wind, and, holding her hat tightly on her head so it wouldn't get caught in the twigs, peered through the foliage.

Sure enough, the skull-faced man was there again, holding the same device that emitted the same static buzz as before, and with the same strange Pokémon by his side.

The man looked frustrated. "Lousy piece of crap," he grumbled, striking the device with an open hand. "Can't even fail right." He pointed it in the air in front of himself like a remote control, hammering a few of the buttons with his thumb. "Come on. Open sesame already."

Save for a slight shift in the pitch of the static, the machine didn't heed his instructions.

The man slapped his forehead in exasperation. "This is stupid," he muttered, drawing the device closer to his eye and twisting a dial minutely. "Just work, dang it!" He scowled at the sky and pointed the machine at it once more. "Abra Kadabra!"

At once, the static went dead, and in its place, high-pitched wailing began to emanate from the device.

The man grinned, strengthening his uncanny resemblance to a bare skull. "Bingo." Just as he had done before, he raised the device into the air, the metal rods pointing towards the sky, and pressed the button near its base.

Blue light flickered in the air where he pointed for a moment, and then, much more suddenly than before, strengthened and took the shape of a glowing crack. The eerie whistling now came from there, not from the device. Yellow's blood ran cold when she realized that somehow it sounded angrier, more forceful than yesterday.

Her fists clenched in terror as the crack shook like something on the other side had rammed into it, and her eyes flew wide at the horrifying recognition that the shaking had expanded the crack. Whatever was beyond it wanted to get through–to force its way into this world. There was something here it wanted to do. Her breath stopped. Her mind filled with the countless nightmares and hallucinated day-terrors she'd sought to repress. A pale white form floating towards her–ghostly hands gripping her neck, suffocating her into black depths–bloody fingers seeking revenge, reaching towards her to rip her throat and spill her blood as payment...

She knew with absolute certainty that the thing struggling to break through the crack was the ghost of Lance, come to kill her.

With a jolt of horror, Yellow saw that there was something moving inside the glowing crack. She'd assumed it had been merely a precursor of the opening that would happen if the crack finally burst, but now she realized that it was more akin to a window–already open, just not large enough to fit through. The same sort of twisted, self-hating curiosity that drives people to watch train crashes without flinching forced her to squint to discern what she'd seen moving within the crack. Though it was difficult to see anything beyond the most general shapes and colors, thanks to the thinness of the crack and the glow it gave off, her muscles went numb as she caught sight of more movement and its perpetrator: a ghostly, formless, white apparition. She couldn't tell what it truly looked like, but that didn't matter. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was him. The ghost of Lance was staring straight at her.

Yellow felt the urge to seize someone's arm, to give herself assurance that her fellow Dexholders hadn't vanished and left her in this nightmare alone. But her muscles refused to obey her, slackened by fright, and she found herself stuck in a purgatory of living rigor mortis.

The whistling grew louder, more impatient. It crescendoed, filling Yellow's ears until it was the only thing she could hear. She finally forced her eyes closed, but it was no use, for the image of the phantom had seared itself into her mind. All she could hear was the eerie wailing that sawed at her soul, and all she could see was white apparitions, smeared with blood, dragging her into an inky abyss...

Yellow wasn't quite sure of how it happened, but the next thing she knew, the whistling was gone, as was the crack in the air, the man, his Pokémon, and the device. It took her a moment to regain her bearings before she realized she must have blacked out when the ghostly form looked at her, and she'd realized that it would stop at nothing to get to her and...

Panic rose in her throat, threatening to stop her breathing again, but she shut the thoughts from her mind and pulled herself from the bush to find her friends sitting so that the four of them formed a small circle.

She must not have been out for too long, because none of them showed any sign that she was acting out of the ordinary, though Yellow figured they would soon notice the blood that had drained from her face and the clamminess of her hands.

"Wh-what happened?" she asked.

Blue gave her another questioning look. Yellow knew her friend was wondering how she could have witnessed the entire thing and not registered what happened. Thankfully, though, Blue didn't voice this query, and answered, "The portal thing started to fail, and the crack disappeared. The guy seemed pretty pleased though, and said that 'the boss' would be happy with the results."

"He also said his name," Red added. "Something like, 'Yaboi Guzma'." He frowned. "But what kind of name is 'Yaboi'...?"

Blue acknowledged him with a nod. "Right, it was part of a mantra of some sort. And then he left. We couldn't follow him because he had an Abra teleport him away." She shrugged. "He could be anywhere."

'He could be anywhere.' The words didn't rest easy on Yellow's mind. 'Anywhere.' That meant that at any point this Guzma man could open another crack in the sky, totally uncontested. That meant that at any point she could hear ethereal whistling, and come face to face with the vengeful ghost of Lance. She felt her muscles going slack with terror again, and once more vainly pushed the thought to the back of her mind.

"What I'm wondering is what was on the other side of that portal," Green said. "I saw something, but I couldn't make it out."

Yellow felt her throat constrict as she tried to ignore thinking about what she knew was the answer to his question. Thankfully, she was saved by Blue introducing another question. "I'm more worried about this 'boss' he mentioned. Someone else is ordering him to do this stuff." She looked concerned. "Do you think it could be Giovanni again?"

Red frowned. "So soon after we just saw him? He'd have to have been working pretty fast. I doubt it. It's gotta be someone else." He shrugged. "I'm just trying to figure out what that Pokémon he had was. I've never seen anything like it before."

"It didn't show up in your old Pokédex," Yellow remembered, her voice barely above a whisper. Any louder and she was afraid she might not be able to speak. A distinct pain broke out in her chest when Red once again refused to look her in the eyes.

"Must be foreign," Blue reasoned. She glanced at Green. "Did you...?"

The gym leader shook his head. "No, it's not from Kalos. At least, it's not in that Pokédex. But more on topic, the portals: we know for sure they exist, and that it's the same guy making them." He turned his calculating stare on Yellow. "Was anything different from yesterday?"

"The opening was bigger," Yellow whispered, wincing internally as she voiced what she'd been hoping beyond hope had just been her imagination. Now that she'd said it, there was a whole new layer or reality to the concept. She could no longer put it out of her mind.

Blue pursed her lips. "Okay... So it's pretty obvious that this guy Guzma is still in the testing stage of that device. He was happy to see that the portal was bigger today, so that probably means his end goal is to open it enough to let whatever's on the other side through."

"Or go in himself," Red suggested. "Can't rule that out."

Blue shrugged. "Or that."

Though the words were nothing Yellow hadn't already come up with herself, the fact that now others had said them, that now she couldn't blame it on lack of sleep, or her lingering post-traumatic stress about the Lance incident, pressed down upon her mind and chest like iron weights. No longer could she tell herself that her fears were merely her own delusion–now they were manifest in others' minds.

Looking at it, the situation felt almost like some great, cosmic practical joke. It was something that might be laughed at, were it not so horrific. Here she was, wishing she was delusional so that she might keep herself sane. There was a certain humor in that–a distorted, twisted humor that made her want to cry far more than laugh.

"Well, we have a good grip on the situation now," Green said, all business. "That is, assuming Yellow's information from the first incident is reliable."

Blue shot him an agitated look. "I think today's a pretty good proof of that."

He gave a small nod of acquiescence. "Then it is. In that case, I think it would be best to come back tomorrow, to see if this happens again, and, if it does, whether this Guzma guy makes any progress."

The slackness is Yellow's muscles increased at the thought that she would have to leave this clearing and then come back the next day. It was like she was being dipped in freezing water, given a minute's respite, and then frozen again in a horrible cycle. She would almost rather be submerged forever rather than be continually given hope, only to have it cruelly snatched away.

Red nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

Blue crossed her arms. "It makes sense." She glanced at Yellow with a raised eyebrow. "Is that good with you?"

Yellow hoped she didn't look or sound as sick as she felt. "Yeah," she forced herself to agree. "Let's do that."

"Then it's settled." Blue checked her watch. "Now, it's, like... 5-ish. I don't know about you all, but I could go for some dinner."

"Seconded," Red said, almost immediately.

Green smirked. "The bottomless pit strikes again."

Yellow would have agreed to the prospect of food, if she'd been sure she could stomach anything. As it was, she felt like she'd swallowed a stormy sea, and suspected anything else wouldn't sit well.

The four made their way back to town. Yellow walked slower than usual. The magnetic hold of the clearing seemed only to have strengthened, now that the phantom in the portal had seen her. She felt as though there were elastic tethers tied to her limbs. Every step stretched them and pulled her back with more force. She wondered if this was what being pulled into a whirlpool felt like. No matter how much her mind screamed at her to run as fast and as far as possible, she failed to increase her pace quicker than a walk. The idea of possession once more crossed her mind–perhaps she was, in a way.

By the time they reached Viridian, it was 7 o'clock.

Blue stretched and smiled, seeming as energetic as ever, despite the exhausting day. "Hey," she addressed Red and Yellow. "There's this restaurant I want to take Green to–you two wouldn't like it–so do you think you'd be okay on your own?"

"Hang on, do I get a choice in this?" Green interjected, looking annoyed.

Blue considered the question for a moment. "Hmm... Well, unless you'd like those childhood photos I found in Professor Oak's photo album to slip into the hands of the public... no, not really."

The Viridian gym leader's jaw clenched. Apparently the photos were embarrassing enough to coerce him. "Is it a place I'd like?"

She shrugged. "Probably not. But hey, you'd be with me, and that's the important part, right?" She gave him a coy wink.

Green inhaled slowly, closing his eyes like he was imagining all the things he could say in retort written on a whiteboard. After he'd drawn in all the air he could, he paused, and then said, "Fine."

Blue grinned. "Excellent." She glanced at Red and Yellow. "You two will be fine without us?"

Red shrugged. "Yeah, I suppose so."

Yellow felt a lump in her throat. Did the nonchalantness of his agreement mean he was still mad at her? And even if it didn't, could she trust herself to not snap at him unprovoked again? Her stomach clenched at the thought of losing her temper again and seeing that hurt look on his face.

"Ah... yeah, no problem," she lied.

"Great!" Blue chirped, seizing Green by the wrist and dragging him off towards whatever restaurant they were going to. "See you two!"

When they'd disappeared from sight, Red placed his hands on his hips, looking down they way they'd gone. "Huh," he said. "I swear there's something going on between those two. Green never lets anyone but her push him around like that."

Yellow made a tiny noise of agreement, too uncomfortable to say anything more. Now that they were alone, the air between them seemed charged. She could feel the times she'd lashed out at him standing between them like brick walls–walls it seemed neither of them knew how to climb of knock down. There was a tension that she wasn't sure how to disperse, and wasn't sure if she even could.

"So..." Red began uncertainly, turning to face her (with a stabbing pain in her chest, Yellow realized he was still refusing to look her in the eyes, and was staring firmly at her hat). "Do you want to get something to eat?"

Truthfully, the answer was 'no.' Yellow still didn't feel like she could eat anything, and her now-aching heart didn't help matters. But out of nowhere an idea occurred to her. "Er... sure," she said. "How about something outside?"

He tilted his head. "Like a picnic?"

She nodded. "Yeah, like that."

Red smiled. "Sure, sounds good!"

For the first time in the past 24 hours, a flicker of hope ignited in Yellow's heart. She imagined what would happen on the picnic: they would be alone, far from interruptions; she would apologize for snapping at him earlier; he would forgive her, and things between them would be back to normal. This was perfect. What could go wrong?

They stopped by a take-out sandwich shop that Yellow vaguely remembered having gone to in her youth and headed towards a part of the same river she'd drawn yesterday that sat on the border between the city and the forest.

As they walked, Yellow felt like she was standing precariously on the edge of a cliff, half her feet on and half her feet off. At the moment, she stared straight forward, refusing to acknowledge the drop-off. But any sudden movement, any realization of the danger of the situation, and she'd lose her balance and fall. As she and Red settled down to eat, she found herself unconsciously averting her eyes from the trees just meters away.

Once again, both found themselves at a loss for what to say. Yellow felt like a faulty calculator–she knew all the individual components of what she wanted to say, but no matter how many times she fed them through the whirlwind in her brain, she couldn't figure out a proper way to phrase them.

She shot nervous glances at Red as the silence stretched on. He was eating his sandwich, but he seemed unfocused, staring at the grass by his feet. She suspected, with a fresh stab of guilt, that he was remembering the conversation at lunch and wondering how to go about talking to her so that she wouldn't lash out at him again. Shoving aside her fear that she might snap at him no matter what he said, Yellow once again shoved her scattered ideas through her mind, searching desperately for some way to speak her mind.

"This is a really good sandwich," Red spoke first, breaking the silence. He smiled, though it looked uncertain. "I, uh, never knew there was a sandwich place in Viridian."

"Yeah." Yellow picked halfheartedly at the aluminum foil still wrapped around her own sandwich. "Most people don't. It's pretty out of the way."

Silence again. The atmosphere was so thick Yellow imagined that if she reached into the air she'd be able to feel a solid wall. ' _Come on_ ,' she berated herself. ' _It's not rocket science–find some way to say you're sorry!_ ' And yet no matter how hard she concentrated, something kept catching inside her mind. Something was stopping the gears–freezing them solid.

Seconds turned into minutes. Yellow had reached a dead end. She knew what she wanted to say, but found it impossible to say it, and every passing second added more and more weight onto her voice, making it harder and harder to command. Red, on the other hand, seemed to be drawing a blank. He appeared to be out of ideas for conversation–even small talk–and apparently found the grass at his feet highly interesting.

Finally, several minutes after Red had finished his sandwich, he spoke again, alleviating the dead weight of silence pressing down on her lungs. "Uh..." He looked awkward. "So... it's getting kind of late."

Yellow hadn't paid much attention to her surroundings, finding it much easier to ignore the forest if she restricted all her peripheries, but now she glanced up at the sky, and was surprised to see the sun already in the process of setting. "Oh," she said. "Yeah, it is, isn't it?"

Red nodded, balling the aluminum foil from his sandwich in his fist. "Well... I figure the four of us should stay near Viridian, just in case. Blue and Green are probably going to stay at the gym, and you live really close, so you guys are good." He shifted the aluminum ball from hand to hand, focusing on it. "I could take Aero back to Pallet Town and come back tomorrow morning, but if something serious happens, I might be too late, so... uh..." He met her eyes for the first time since the morning. "Can I stay at your place?"

Yellow took a moment to compute. She wasn't sure she'd seen or heard him right. "Sorry, what?"

Red looked away. "Ah, I mean–sorry, I phrased that badly. I just meant sleep on the couch or... I mean, if you don't want me to, that's–"

"Sure," Yellow blurted without a second thought, her thoughts carried by a swelling feeling in her chest. "That's definitely okay."

His face lit up with a smile. "Really? Great! Thanks so much!"

It was getting dark outside, so they packed up what remained of their picnic (Yellow figured she'd put her untouched sandwich in the refrigerator for another day when her stomach calmed down) and headed toward Yellow's house.

The walk was a decent length, and yet Yellow felt like she was barely expending any energy at all. She felt downright ecstatic. It was as though the cliff she stood on now faded away, and she could step off it and fly, not fall. Even though darkness settled fast around them as they walked, the rift in the sky and the shrill ethereal whistling imagined ghostly white forms lurking behind tree trunks and foliage seemed as far away as the Moon. She had developed tunnel vision, unable to see anything but Red's eyes, euphoric that she could now look into them straight on.

Yellow still rode on this swell when they arrived at her house and she unlocked the front door. She twisted the handle and the two stepped inside. Yellow hadn't cleaned in a while, but there wasn't too much of a mess. She doubted she would've noticed it to be embarrassed, even if there had been; her peripherals had gone defunct.

The rush she felt inside was similar to her earlier nausea. If she hadn't associated it with different feelings, she might have thought it was the same thing. It was a high like she imagined a wave on the ocean might feel, picking up speed as it went. Everything else seemed to wash away in the face of this euphoria.

And yet something stopped her from removing her hat. Something stopped her from smiling. She didn't know why she couldn't make herself do these things. She could see no reason for these unconscious inabilities. In her mind, she was on top of the world. With a feeling like this, what could be wrong?

Red gave a low whistle, looking around the house with interest. "Nice place."

"Thanks," Yellow said, realizing that he hadn't seen her house before. "It's not a lot, but I like it."

He smiled. "It's really great." He looked her in the eyes again, and her stomach began to churn faster. She could stare into those red eyes for now until the end of time. Nothing could break the swell in her chest. "Seriously," he said, "Thanks for letting me stay here, man."

Agitation coursed through Yellow's veins. "Yeah," she said, her voice caustic. "Whatever."

A hurt look washed across Red's face, and he looked away. "Er... right, yeah..." he mumbled.

Suddenly, Yellow wasn't flying anymore. She never had been. She'd been falling the entire time. The wave had reached its final destination: shattered on the sheer cliffs of the shore. She plunged into the freezing water once more.

Her limbs went slack as her bearings came back to her in a shock. Her field of vision returned to normal, and with it her reason. The darkness of the forest, which had been blotted from her mind on the way home, now pressed down on her chest like iron weights. She felt as though the pale phantoms had their hands clamped around her neck, so tight that she could barely draw a breath, so tight that the corners of her vision were going black.

Yellow was suddenly drowned by the need to get out of the room, for the hurt etched in Red's expression caused such a pain in her chest that she thought she might lose consciousness. "Uh, there's a couch... there..." She feebly gestured towards the couch in question. Her muscles were so unresponsive with cold that she couldn't gesture any more clearly. "And I..." She, unable to find a good end to that sentence, hurried as quickly as she could, up the stairs and into her room.

The blood in her veins flowed icy cold as she locked the door behind herself and curled up in the fetal position on her bed. The weight on her chest and tightness in her throat increased. She felt sicker than she'd ever felt before–the flu was a meadow breeze compared to this. "Wh-why?" she mumbled weakly.

That 'why' asked all her questions at once. _'Why me? Why now? Why all these sufferings all at once? Why am I acting this way? Why do I feel sick?_ ' She found answers to none of these questions, which only made her feel worse. Finally, out the terrible whirlpool in her stomach and heart and mind came a singular question: ' _What if I'm broken somehow?_ '

That was when tears began to pour from her eyes, for the unanswered question was the weight set to drag her, falling, down into oblivion. How stupid she felt now, to have thought she was flying just minutes earlier. She now realized the truth: she'd been falling from the precipice all along, and now an iron weight clamped to her ankle to expedite the process. The swell of the wave she'd allowed to carry her had been a fleeting illusion–she'd been blind not to see the cliffs. Now she was sinking... sinking... sinking numbly into the icy cold water, the pressure building and the vain light of the Sun slowly and steadily waning into inky darkness.

In this trench of despair, Yellow's mind seized on a thought–the only thought that didn't immediately drown her–the only thing to blame that didn't instantly condemn her to the void. She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. "Stupid hormones," she growled. "Stupid, _stupid_ hormones."

It wasn't a satisfactory explanation. It didn't solve the problem. It didn't overcome the cliffs. It didn't break her fall. It didn't insulate her from the freezing water. But it was all she had.

Her anger already giving way to sadness once more, for there was nothing in her to fuel it, she grabbed her pillow and hugged it close–a cold comfort against a phantom threat. She shut her tear-stricken eyes, and gave way to semi-conscious nightmares.


	4. Chapter 4

The microwave once again beeped that it was finished heating. After taking too long to register the meaning behind the noise, without conscious thought, Yellow pressed the buttons to make it heat another twenty seconds, staring without focus as the bulb lit up again, and the food slowly rotated on the disk within.

She didn't remember waking up, nor getting dressed, nor making the decision that she was too nauseas to eat breakfast herself, nor cooking the food, nor putting it in the microwave to keep it warm. It was as though she'd woken up the first time the machine had beeped that it was finished with its task.

Everything felt cold, though in reality it wasn't. If Yellow had her wits about her, she would've realized she just had the chills, but in her half-conscious state, the condition was merely a reflection of the psychological trauma she was suffering. Everything was cold because nowhere was safe–everywhere she went the pale phantoms could find her. The walls around her meant nothing; she might as well have been submerged in the waters of the Arctic.

The microwave beeped again. Yellow again took too long to process it, and then added another twenty seconds to the timer, letting it spin.

"Hey, uh... good morning," Red's voice said behind her. Yellow turned slowly and saw him unsurely entering the room. She hadn't noticed him wake up.

"Says who?" she muttered under her breath. "Yeah, good morning," she said out loud. The microwave beeped again and she, with a heavy heart at the sacrifice of the only thing she knew was under her power, took out the plate. "Here," she said, sliding the food and a fork over to Red. "Breakfast."

"Oh..." He trailed off. His eyes had lit up at the friendly gesture, but he'd just as quickly noticed the blatant despondence in her voice, and the lack of confidence in the situation had returned to him. "Ah... thanks," he decided, and sat down where the plate had landed.

"No problem." Yellow's voice was barely above a whisper. Yet another layer of fear had settled over her. Now in addition to worrying about phantoms, she had to fear herself. Every time she spoke to Red, she ran the risk of flipping her unknown switch and snapping at him. Every conversation was a gamble; emotionally isolating herself seemed to be the only option.

And yet even that led to more problems. As terrible as she now realized the high she'd had yesterday was, it had allowed her to temporarily forget her more existential fears. For a short time, the freezing cold had seemed to abate. If she isolated herself within those icy waters, though, she only grew colder. She found herself trapped between two insurmountable fears, weighing down like a lead coat on her chest, with no solution in sight.

"Are you hungry?" Red asked, concern in his face.

"No," Yellow replied honestly. She felt, from the combination of circumstances, sick enough that any food she managed to eat would quickly find itself in a trash can. "No, I'm fine," she assured him dishonestly. She was not fine, and blatantly so. But it was far easier to ignore it–pretend everything was okay, even though that would ultimately make things worse.

Silence. Yellow found herself longing for the familiar hum of the microwave to drown out the lack of sound. She could feel the pressure to start a conversation weighing on her, but didn't dare cave to it. It would be so nice to alleviate that demand with blissfully unmeaningful, under-control white noise, but that was sadly impossible.

After another agonizing few minutes, Red finally finished eating the microwaved eggs and sausage, and the two set out to meet Blue and Green.

The usual bright sun had given way to dismal gray clouds that cast a shadow over the entire Viridian area. The unnatural twilight weighed heavily on Yellow's heart. It seemed that nature itself, in spite of its regular, predictable cycles, sensed that an end was near, and felt it suitable to mimic that by manufacturing the end of the day. The air was humid, and that too seemed to have meaning. Rain was coming–nature was on the verge of tears.

They didn't talk much as they walked. Red seemed to be highly interested in his surroundings, looking everywhere but in Yellow's direction. It was obvious that he was wary, perhaps even scared, to talk to her. Miserably, she reflected that, if she were in his situation, she would be too.

They found Blue and Green in high spirits–that is to say, Blue seemed far more positive than usual, and Green's expression was slightly less monotonous. Yellow slowly remembered that they'd gone to dinner or something last night. It seemed that engagement had gone well.

Blue grinned at her and Red as they approached. "'Morning, guys! How's it going?"

' _Terrible,_ ' Yellow thought. "Fine," she said.

"Good enough," Red said with a noncommittal shrug.

Blue's smile flickered for a second, betraying her concern, but then it was back. Yellow appreciated her friend not voicing her worries. Sometimes it seemed Blue had a sixth sense about these sorts of things. It was as though without even speaking the older trainer could understand that Yellow wanted isolation.

"Well, we're doing well too," Blue announced, half-gesturing towards herself and Green. "I suppose you two are ready to go for another stakeout?"

'Ready?' Yellow felt like laughing, though the situation was truly devoid of humor. How could she possibly be 'ready?' Being 'ready' would mean being prepared to face phantoms, death, and a portal to a place that, in her mind, at least, had a strong likelihood of leading to actual Hell. 'Ready' was unattainable. "Yeah, I think so," she replied to Blue.

"We need to get there soon. Remember, this Guzma was happy to see the portal was bigger," Green reminded them. "And that means he'll probably open another as soon as possible."

"Right," Blue agreed with a nod, casting a glance over each of them and only wincing slightly when she saw Yellow's obvious despair. "Let's go."

Yellow didn't notice most of the walk back to the stakeout spot. For the most part, she stared without truly seeing at her feet, which were once again independently following the path to the place that so magnetically drew her. She didn't bother being circumspect–at this point, trapped as she was between the two terrible opposites, she'd given up. If something attacked or killed her while she wasn't looking, so be it.

She was so divorced from her surroundings that she almost forgot to crouch down in front of the bush that veiled the clearing. Taking a knee, she heard the other three do so near her, guaranteeing at least that she hadn't lost them in the forest due to her lack of focus.

A certain numbness had taken hold of Yellow. It was as though her entire self was a limb that had lost circulation in cold weather, and now had lost its ability to function at all. Despite the whirlpool of things to think about, her conscious mind was strangely devoid of any thought. It was as though it found itself unable to comprehend anything, and so it had given up trying. Her entire body had succumbed as well. When she reached for the bush, she fumbled with the branches four times before finally managing to part them, scraping her knuckles on the bark in the process.

When Yellow peered through the branches once again, her spirits sank further when she saw that Guzma was already there. It wasn't as though if he had been absent her fears would be alleviated–only that his presence succeeded in making the terror especially visceral and unignorable.

Vaguely aware of the others finding their own sight lines through the branches around her, Yellow watched Guzma as he held the same device as before in the air.

"Okay," he said, as though he was talking to an unpredictable subordinate. "Let's try to get this first time for once, huh?" And he pressed the button on the device, activating the static that was a precursor to the object of Yellow's fear.

The machine must have been fine-tuned from yesterday's session, because it immediately began to emit the telltale whistling, confirming its connection to whatever was on the other side.

Guzma grinned, his skull-like face accentuating his menacingly gritted teeth. "There it is," he said, and pressed one more button to open the portal.

The same light appeared in the air near the treetops, and, same as previous days, expanded into a crack that began to widen. Yellow, terrified beyond belief just as before, glanced at the dismal sky and heard thunder rumble in the distance, and realized that this was the breaking point. The storm was approaching. This was the day that would decide the situation. Either she would die at the hands of the phantoms from beyond this world, or...

Or what? No matter how many times she searched her thoughts, she could find no alternatives. How could she combat vengeful spirits? Hiding was out of the question. Fighting would serve no purpose–it would be just as useful to try to hold back the sea with her hands. It seemed that she had no options but to give in.

Meanwhile the whistling grew even louder. White figures flitted back and forth on the other side of the portal. Yellow didn't particularly care if they saw her–the one she was worried about, that of Lance, had already spotted her yesterday.

"Yes!" Guzma exclaimed, obviously pleased that this was progressing so quickly. "If I can just hold this connection stable for long enough..." He didn't finish the sentence, but Yellow filled in the blanks. If he could hold the connection for long enough, the things on the other side would cross through.

She felt the blood drain from her face and her muscles begin to fail her as the portal grew wider. It was now large enough to fit a small Pokémon through it. Chuchu would be able to pass through easily. How much longer before whatever was on the other side could slip through?

Finally, after an agonizingly long terror-filled wait, a pale white appendage slipped through the gateway. In Yellow's mind, this was a hand–the same hand that had closed around her throat in nightmares both waking and sleeping, clamping it until she couldn't breathe, until her lungs burned for air, and her field of vision shrunk, and she drifted towards death.

Following the white appendage was a torso, and then what appeared to be a head. Yellow couldn't properly see the figure that had just crossed into her world, since her vision had involuntarily gone blurry, as though her subconscious was trying to censor the image from her mind, perhaps hoping that if she couldn't see it well, she might not be afraid.

She was afraid, though–deathly so. The muscle-numbing cold that she experienced when she was near or had thoughts of the phantom that had invaded her reality had become so real that the tips of her fingers were turning white with lack of circulation. Her heart hammered against her ribcage so violently that she wondered whether anyone–perhaps the pale figure–was able to hear it. She was terrified beyond what anyone should have to suffer through–she simply lacked the willpower to do anything about it.

The worst part of all Yellow's trauma: she wondered–and she was starting to believe it–whether she deserved all this suffering. Perhaps this was justice, finally balancing things out after seven years. Was it really so hard to imagine? After all, she'd been the one to use Megavolt, which she knew full well would mean almost certain death for Lance. Surely there had been some other means of resolving the problem without taking his life.

She recalled her recurring nightmare where blood stained her hands scarlet, dripping from her fingertips. She'd been so preoccupied with thinking that she was imagining a world where she'd become like Lance that she hadn't considered that she might be seeing herself as she really was: a murderer. A murderer who deserved to have her crime repaid in full.

Thunder rumbled, close at hand now. The portal, seeming to have withstood all it could, fizzled out of existence, but the whistling didn't stop. Now it came from the phantasmagoric creature hovering in the air.

Guzma roared with laughter, glaring up at the creature. "YES! Finally! I've been waiting for this! This is gonna be FUN!"

The pale phantom didn't express a single word in response, but, as if Guzma hadn't spoken at all, turned and raced off in another direction entirely, dodging between trees.

Guzma's menacing grin faded, replaced with cold frustration. Pocketing the device, he said, "Fine, I'll find you eventually. Until then, though..." The smirk returned. "Wreck as much as you want." So saying, he laughed again and walked out from the clearing in a direction nearly perpendicular to the creature's path.

Yellow's breathing was shallow. The matter she'd been so worried about before–that her fears would become more real if she conveyed them to her friends–paled to what had just happened. She now had no choice in the matter. Even the thinnest barrier she'd created to cope with it–that it might not become reality if she didn't think about it–had shattered. Her demon was already here. There was no denying it.

But why hadn't it come after her immediately? There was no extra expedience in waiting to kill her, so why had it left? Instantly she knew the answer, for she'd known it all along, and had been ignoring it because of its horrible implications. She hadn't simply had a short confrontation with Lance–it had been long and drawn out until the final finishing attack. Lance wouldn't want to simply kill her in revenge. He would want to draw the process out–to torture her by threatening death, and then allowing her to live a little longer, but with the knowledge that at any moment he could return. He would want to break her as he'd been unable to in life–to utterly defeat her. Only then would he deal the finishing blow, completing his triumph.

"Oh... this is bad," Blue muttered, and for once there was no confidence or joking in her voice. "This is _really_ bad."

"No kidding," Green agreed. "It's crisis time–we have to deal with this _now_." He shot a deadly serious look at Blue. "You and I go after the creature. You two..." He pointed at Red and Yellow. "Follow Guzma. Make sure he doesn't anything more. Got it?"

No one raised any objections, all too shocked, or in Yellow's case, petrified, to question what seemed to be a sensible plan.

"Let's move," Green said, and he and Blue rose to their feet and set out at almost a full sprint down the way the phantom had gone.

Red looked at Yellow–or rather, her hat–his expression a mixture of concern and determination. "You good to go?"

Yellow's heart was still pounding, but thankfully the shock was dying down, even if only temporarily. She took a few shallow breaths, unable to draw enough air to satiate her constricted lungs. She tried for speech, but it didn't come at first. The second time she tried, her voice was weak, but present. "Y-yeah. Let's do it."

They got to their feet–far slower than normal, but it happened nonetheless–and pushed through the bushes in front of them, setting out on Guzma's tail.

The forest blurred around Yellow as they walked. Distinct details began to fade into a simple curtain of green, darkened by the oppressive overhanging storm clouds. Eventually, she no longer knew where she was in the forest, which had only happened once before, when she was very young. Yet this time she couldn't muster the energy to care. At the moment, it didn't particularly matter to her whether she knew where she was or not.

After a while, Red noticed her lack of focus. With worry in his face, he glanced over at her. "Hey, are you okay, man?"

Something in Yellow snapped at his question. Her jaw tightened involuntarily, and her fists clenched. "Yeah," she snarled, uncontrollable bitterness mangling her voice with cruel sarcasm. "Oh yeah, I'm just FINE. Not a thing wrong with me! What could POSSIBLY make you think that?"

Red stared at her in shocked disbelief, but it quickly turned to anger. "Okay, that's it. I'm done putting up with this. What's the matter with you? What did I do to deserve you being such a jerk?!"

Instead of immediately feeling terrible at her agitation like she had after previous outbursts, this time Yellow burned even more with anger, hot blood coursing through her veins as it never had before. "Oh, I don't know, MAN," she snapped, adding biting emphasis to the word. "I have no idea what it could be, MAN."

Red's eyes narrowed furiously. "Is that it? Really?! Why is it so terrible that I call you 'man'?!"

An odd thing began to happen to Yellow as he asked this question. The anger she'd felt began to mix with sadness, and she started to cry, for what must have seemed like no logical reason, but she knew why. Now that they'd hit at the heart of the issue–and she knew they had beyond a shadow of a doubt, just the same as one knows where they've been bruised when it's pressed on–everything in the mixed pile of emotions she'd felt towards Red, which had intermingled and been augmented by the fear of the phantom, now made sense.

"I-I..." she choked out, finding it difficult to speak. "I just thought... after a-all this time... am I still just some boy to you?!"

She looked away, tears streaking down her face. She didn't want to be there right now. She didn't want to be anywhere right now. She turned and ran through the undergrowth, not caring about the thorns that caught her, filled with only one desire: to outrun everything–her emotions, the phantom, all of it–to outrun the inescapable.

Eventually she tripped over a root and fell to the ground. She wasn't sure whether the impact hurt, but at the moment it didn't matter either way. She sat up and hugged her knees close to her chest, burying her face in them and letting misery consume her.

Yellow didn't know how long she remained in that dark haze. It could have been minutes, or hours, or even days. The next thing she was aware of, though, was a cold drizzle from the broken storm peppering the top of her head, and a familiar voice calling her name. It was Red's voice, and he was close. Yellow contemplated running again, but she knew it would be useless. Once Red put his mind to something, there was no stopping him. So, instead, she sat motionless, sides still shaking with quiet sobs.

She looked up when she heard grass crunch in front of her. Red had kneeled down in front of her, his expression surprisingly soft in stark contrast to the furious expression he'd had during the previous explosion between them.

Seeing him again, the tears grew more intense, until Yellow was barely able to choke out words through them. Still, she spoke first, before he had a chance. "I-I'm so sorry!" she spluttered. "I-I've been s-so mean to you, a-and you don't deserve it, and I'm such a t-terrible person, and–"

"No," Red interrupted her, his voice calm and firm. "No, you're right."

"Wh-what...?"

"I haven't been fair to you–for years now, but especially since I got here. I–" Red sighed, looking down at the grass. "I haven't been honest with you, or with myself, and it's time I do that." He gave Yellow a compassionate look, and she was surprised to find that, in this of all situations, he met her eyes. "It's a pretty long story. Are you okay to listen to it?"

Yellow, still crying, though not as hard because her sadness had mixed with confusion at Red's sudden change of heart, nodded slowly, not knowing what else to do.

"When I..." Red started, but then faltered. He took a deep breath and tried again. "When I first learned you were a girl, I was really surprised. I thought... well, I just figured that wasn't the sort of thing someone would keep secret for... what was it, two years?... so it caught me completely off guard. But there wasn't a lot of time to think about it, considering, y'know, the whole world-in-danger crisis, so I just kind of... ignored it for a while, I guess is the best way of putting it."

He shrugged. "Well, after a while, when I _did_ have time to think about it, it kind of hit me full force. It seriously changed the way I thought about you. That was the point when I started to think about you like... to feel..." He waved his hands, as though filling in what he left unstated.

"I tried to justify how I felt–to... to talk myself out of it, I guess. I told myself it was just because you had such a strong connection with Pika. I told myself that it was just because Pika and Chuchu had an egg. I told myself it was just because you saved the world. I told myself it was just because you spent so long looking for me when I was in danger. I told myself..." He trailed off. "Well, you get the point. I tried desperately to find some reason that what I was feeling wasn't real–that I didn't actually..." Again, he waved his hands.

"But none of it worked." He chuckled quietly. "The whole airship incident was enough to prove that to me. No matter how much I tried to explain away how I felt, I couldn't stop it. Nothing made sense except for what I was trying so hard to deny. So... I chose to ignore it. I thought that if I didn't acknowledge the things I felt, they wouldn't exist. And the easiest way to do that was... to treat you like a boy."

He heaved a heavy sigh. "I suppose I should explain why I was trying to deny... y'know..." More hand waving. "In the first place." He looked into her eyes with utmost sincerity. "Well, the reason for that is because... you were–and still are–my best friend. Don't get me wrong, Blue's nice and all, but she's stolen my trainer card six times now, and I always get the feeling that we're not really friends as much as temporary allies. And Green is... uh... Green."

To Yellow's surprise, she found herself giving a near-silent, watery laugh at that comment, and genuinely smiling, without even a hint of haze.

"I didn't want to make things awkward between us, so I tried as hard as possible to force myself not to feel what I felt. I tried to act like you were just one of the guys. But it's time I stopped lying to myself–to you." Red reached forward and grabbed the brim of Yellow's straw hat. "Do you mind if I...?" When she shook her head, he removed the hat, freeing her hair. "Thanks," he said with a smile. "You look much better like that."

Yellow's breathing was shallow again, but this time for an entirely different reason. This time the breathlessness came from excited surprise at Red's explanation. She'd never suspected anything he'd just said. Each new revelation–no, each word–touched somewhere new in her heart, warming it, making it beat faster.

"Yellow," Red said, his voice comfortingly strong with conviction. "You've never been just some boy to me. I was stupid to try to convince myself you were." He reached out with a hand to gently brush the comingled raindrops and tears off her cheek, but his hand lingered there, as if he was hesitant to break contact with her. "The truth is, I...l–"

Suddenly the world around them exploded in a torrent of water.

Yellow's senses reeled as she was swept off her feet. Tossed in the powerful current, she couldn't tell up from down. Desperate for some sort of foothold to stop herself from tumbling with the flow and find air, she extended her legs, and her feet scraped against ground. Almost immediately, she felt something catch her right foot at an awkward angle, and an explosion of pain shot from her ankle up her leg, so intense that her vision failed and she lost her balance.

By the time she regained sight, the water had subsided, and was now trickling away through the undergrowth. Whimpering involuntarily from the agony gripping her leg, she looked down towards her feet. There, caught under a protruding tree root, her right foot was pointed abnormally sideways, twisted much farther than it ever should be. She tried to move it, but the mere muscle impulse sent such scorching pain through her system that she nearly lost sight again.

Red, who had allowed the current to carry him and ended up facedown a few feet from Yellow, groaned and got to his feet. "Agh..." he muttered. "What the heck was that?"

"Ha! Got 'em!"

Yellow's heart sank as she recognized voice behind the triumphant shout. Looking towards the source confirmed her fear: it was Guzma.

The skull-faced man had a large grin stretched across his face. "I knew it!" he said, victory in his tone as he forced his way through the bushes he'd hidden behind, followed by the hulking Pokémon Yellow had seen before. "I knew someone was tailing me, and now I've got you!" He smirked, looking down at the two. "Don't look like much, do you?"

"That's what you think," Red retorted, forcing himself to his feet and pulling a Pokéball from his belt. Without wavering his gaze from his adversary, he said, "Yellow, let's do this! Go, Saur!" and sent out his Venusaur.

Yellow cast one glance at her mangled ankle and concluded that she wasn't going to be able to move. So, her fingers fumbling from the shock to her nervous system, she hastily pried Ratty's Pokéball from her belt and tossed it in front of her.

Guzma raised his eyebrows at the appearance of the two Pokémon. "Oh, okay. Maybe this'll be interesting." He smirked with a glare. "It won't make any difference, thought. Go, Golisopod! Water Pulse!"

The huge Pokémon by Guzma's side lumbered a few steps forward, and, perhaps sensing that it would have a type disadvantage against Saur, took aim at Yellow. She held her hands out in front of herself in a vain attempt to protect herself against the new onslaught of water. Instead, though, Ratty took the attack, shielding her with its body.

Yellow gritted her teeth as her Raticate slid back towards her across the slick grass, unconscious. One hit was all it had taken. Returning Ratty to its ball, she sent out Omny in its place, hoping that the strange Pokémon didn't know any grass type moves.

She shot a quick glance back at Red, who, at the same time, glanced over at her, his eyebrows furrowing. She suspected he'd noticed that she hadn't moved, and realized something must be wrong. "Saur, get in closer and use Vine Whip!" he ordered his Venusaur, and he and his Pokémon began edging forward, angling to put themselves between Guzma and Yellow.

The skull-faced man grinned. "Vine Whip, huh?" He shrugged, his expression still smug. "Okay, kid, go ahead."

As Red advanced and Guzma held his ground, Omny looked back at Yellow, waiting for commands.

"Uh..." Yellow tried to think, but couldn't formulate a coherent idea. Between the conversation she'd just had with Red, the agonizing pain in her ankle, and the still-remaining terror of the looming phantom, her thoughts were too muddled to make any sense. "S-stay put," she decided. "Look for an opening, and if you find one, use Rollout."

With the order given, Yellow cast another look down at her ankle to check the damage, glancing up every other moment to keep track of the battle. Her right foot was turned outward, almost perpendicular to her left foot, indicating that several important bones were broken. She grimaced. This was a far more severe injury than any she'd gotten before, and just when things seemed to be turning better...

At length–or, it felt like length, at least, despite only being around five seconds–she decided that she needed to move herself, and that required freeing her ankle. Taking a deep breath, she risked tensing the muscles necessary to move her foot. Immediately a powerful nausea arose in the pit of her stomach, accompanied by fiery, stabbing pain that shot up her leg and spots dancing in her vision. In an attempt to lessen the magnitude of the agony, she bit her knuckles so hard that they bled. ' _Bad idea–very bad idea!_ '

"Saur!" Yellow heard Red's shout as though through a layer of cotton–the pain had dulled her senses–and she looked up immediately to see what was going on. To her utter surprise, the Red's Venusaur had collapsed, unconscious, its legs splayed, and Guzma's hulking Pokémon stood over it, its claws wreathed in darkness.

"Too easy!" Guzma gloated. "All you do is attack, attack, attack. Sucker Punch is great for taking out numbskulls like you!"

"That doesn't make any sense," Yellow heard Red mutter, his eyes flitting back and forth between his fallen Venusaur and the Guzma's foreign Pokémon. "It's gotta be a water type, so why didn't...?" He narrowed his eyes, thumbing through the Pokéballs on his belt. "Fine, then, it's gotta be a dark type too, so... Poli!" In a split second, he'd recalled Saur and sent out his Poliwrath, which landed in fighting stance, glaring at Guzma's Pokémon.

"Heh, getting clever, then?" Guzma grinned. "Fine, let's see if this one is any better."

Yellow, confident in Red's strategy, returned to her problem. Any movement below her knee sent so much pain through her body that she couldn't breathe, and her thoughts turned incoherent. So, making very sure to keep her ankle as still as possible, she slowly, with painstakingly hesitance, bent her knee, sliding her foot out from under the root.

Even with her carefulness, every centimeter she moved her foot felt like she was ripping it off. A blurry haze consumed her field of vision. It took all her willpower to force herself not to cry out. The normally mundane task engulfed her in agony so terrible she wished she were dead. She'd never drowned, but she imagined this was what it felt like. When, after what felt like years, it was over, she collapsed, unmoving, her chest heaving with labored gasps for air.

Finally, once her sight was cleared –or, at least, functional–she risked movement. With immense effort, she forced herself into a sitting position, propping herself up with her arms.

Good news wasn't waiting for her on the other end of her suffering. As she watched, Guzma's Pokémon lashed out at Poli with a clawed arm, knocking it out of the air and pinning it to the ground, before releasing it, unconscious.

"Another one," Guzma remarked. "Man, you're really freakin' bad at this, huh?"

"What the heck?!" Red demanded angrily, withdrawing Poli. "Grass moves don't work well, fighting moves don't work well–what _is_ this thing?!"

Guzma shrugged. "It's better than you. That's what matters in a battle, right?" He smirked. "Listen, kid, I'd love to keep knocking you down, but I've got stuff to do. So why don't you and your friend get out of here, and we don't have any more trouble, huh?"

"In your dreams," Red retorted, going to his belt again.

Guzma shook his head. "Figured you'd say something stupid like that." He turned to his Pokémon. "All right, Iso. Pin Missile, and take aim at..." With a cruel grin, he pointed at Yellow, whose stomach dropped out from under her. "Her."

The Pokémon turned toward Yellow, raising a claw, ready to shoot some sort of lethal dart at her, but before it could, Red raised his hands and shouted, "Wait, don't do it!"

Guzma laughed without humor. "There we go. NOW you're being smart." He raised a hand to stop his Pokémon. "Now, if you'll excuse me..." He pulled another Pokéball from his pocket and sent out an Abra, which looked zoned-out, as Abra typically are. Guzma smirked. "These things are dead useful, y'know. I don't know why I never got one back home." He prodded the Pokémon in the side of the head. "Get us out of here."

In a shimmer of space, Guzma, his monster, and the Abra vanished.

It took a moment for the shock of what had just happened to set in. Gradually, Yellow began to replay the events. First, she'd broken her ankle. Then Red had fought and been losing to Guzma. Then Guzma had threatened to have his Pokémon kill her...

Yellow's eyes widened in sudden comprehension of that statement. She'd nearly been killed–murdered, no less. In the moment, the magnitude of the threat hadn't truly hit her, but now it struck full force. Death–which she'd almost forgotten about–now stabbed her with a cold reminder of its ever-present nature. And even more so now (her blood ran chill with the recollection) because the phantom still loomed in the shadows. A sudden panic seized her when she realized that it could be anywhere–behind that tree right there, or hidden in a bush, or even right behind her–and she couldn't even use her ankle to run (a false reassurance in the first place, but it was nevertheless calming).

Her breath turned choppy with hyperventilation. The peril of her situation had overwhelmed her, and she felt cold seep into her entire being. So cold. So alone.

A hand on her back jarred her from her panic. It was warm, despite the rain, and somehow its reassuring firmness steadied Yellow's breathing. "Are you okay?" Red asked, his voice gentle as he knelt beside her and looked into her eyes.

"Ah..." Yellow faltered, surprised that her voice worked. "N-no. My ankle is..." She cast her eyes down to her misaligned foot.

Red's gaze followed hers. He winced sympathetically when he saw the problem. "Ooh, yeah. I don't think feet are supposed to point that way." He frowned. "Is there any way I can help?"

Yellow shook her head. The cold had temporarily receded, and her thoughts now processed coherently. "Not with fixing it, no. I don't know how... I can't even move it without..." She trailed off, recalling something from years ago. With an idea in mind, she recalled Omny and sent out her Butterfree, Kitty. "Kitty, I need you to make a cast around my ankle."

The Butterfree looked at Yellow's foot, then glanced back at her with obvious confusion, appearing to ask, 'With it like that?'

Yellow nodded. "I know it doesn't look right, but casting it like that is better than nothing."

Kitty looked worried about the order–as worried as a Butterfree can look, that is–but proceeded to use String Shot, coating Yellow's ankle and foot with layers and layers of silk. By the time the process was done, the hardened silk looked like a large white boot, but it served its purpose and kept Yellow's foot rigid.

She withdrew Kitty, and said, "Thank you," through the transparent roof of its Pokéball.

Red looked impressed. "Wow," he said. "That's really smart. I would have never thought of using String Shot for something like that."

A small smile played on Yellow's lips at the compliment, but it faded just as quickly. "Thanks. We've got to get going, though. Can you...?" She held out her hand.

"Yeah, no problem." Red quickly rose to his feet and grabbed it, helping her to her feet–or, foot, as was the case, since she took particular care not to put any weight on her casted foot yet.

Yellow took a deep breath. "Okay. Let's see if I can..." She placed her cast on the ground and began to apply weight to it.

White hot pain shot up her leg, so intense that her knees buckled. The only reason she was able to keep standing was because Red caught her before she fell. It took a moment before she was able to speak again. "O-okay... weight is still a bad idea."

"I can support you," Red offered. "Here, just lean on me a little... put your arm like that..." He adjusted himself so that Yellow was able to lean herself against his side and place her hand on his other shoulder for balance. They were able to move like a three-legged creature, Red's support allowing Yellow to keep her casted foot elevated.

"Thank you," Yellow said, a tiny warmth sparking in her heart at his help, in defiance of the cold.

"Of course," Red replied, smiling slightly and giving her another kind look. "Now, let's get going."

And so the two set off in an unknown direction, searching for Guzma.


	5. Chapter 5

Yellow hobbled along a barely-worn forest path, leaning against Red like a crutch. The two were making slow progress. She was sure they'd barely made it a half a mile since they'd started. Yellow's mangled ankle ached, radiating pain up through her leg despite the casting around it. The air was chilled, the sun absent, and the ground shadowed. Rain dripped slowly through the leaves overhead, each drop an icy pinprick. All Yellow could see in the world around her was cold, damp, and dark.

And yet, she was warm. Red's arm around her shoulders gave her a stable anchor–a lifeline when her thoughts began to turn to the misery and despair that haunted the corners in her mind. His touch radiated soothing warmth that melted any ice that threatened to form around her soul. Even her ankle didn't seem so bad, despite the lightning, shooting pain that each misstep onto it sent through her system.

The change was nonsensical, and Yellow knew it. The freezing darkness was still there. The phantom still haunted the woods around her. The world was still in crisis. But despite the crushing reality of the situation, leaning on Red gave her foundation. With his support, the terror, the suffering, the chill in the air... No matter how much the hurricane buffeted her, it couldn't rip her away. The wave never broke, for the cliffs didn't exist. The bridge on which she stood was solid. The warm reprieve from the icy waters lasted.

Another slight misstep caused Yellow to grip Red's shoulder more tightly for balance, lessening even further the distance between them. He paused slightly, letting her catch herself, and then gave her shoulder a slight squeeze of reassurance. Yellow's face colored. She was very aware of how close they were. _Very_ aware.

Part of her wanted to know what Red had been about to say before they'd been rudely interrupted by Guzma. That part of her paced restlessly, demanding that she ask immediately. After all, he'd been about to tell her anyway, what was the harm in asking for an answer that he'd already prepared to divulge? The other, milder, part of her objected, pointing out that this wasn't exactly the best time to get emotional, what with the crisis on hand. She didn't want to distract Red or herself from the immediate goal, at least.

"You holding up okay?"

The question took her by surprise. She didn't immediately comprehend it. "Uh... what do you mean?"

Red shrugged slightly. "You know, are you still doing all right? We've gone a pretty good ways."

Yellow laughed, though there was little humor to it. "Yeah, right. We've probably gotten a mile at most." She paused to consider her answer. "Yeah, I'm doing fine. I just wish I wasn't crippled like this and slowing you down."

Red's lips tightened. "I'm just glad you're not dead."

Yellow shivered, remembering how Guzma had threatened to have his Pokémon murder her. "Fair point."

Red must have felt her shaking, because he winced and said, "Sorry, that was kind of dark. Point is, we've moving at a steady pace, we're both safe, we're together, and I wouldn't want it any other way."

Yellow smiled. It was a small, barely noticeable smile, but genuine nonetheless. "I'm with you there."

They continued on for a while, dodging through the shadowy, rainy darkness around walls of thick underbrush and gnarled tree roots, before Red abruptly stopped. Yellow immediately went on guard, scanning the area, nervousness welling up inside her. "Wh-What's up?" she asked, shooting him a glance.

Red's gaze fixed on a bush. He shook his head. "Nothing, I guess. I could have sworn I saw something sparkling..."

Yellow thought for a moment. She was sure Red hadn't just imagined what he'd seen–he had a good eye for details like that–but there were a scarce number of things in the forest that could sparkle. A Pokemon might be able to, or perhaps some sort of strange bioluminescent plant she hadn't encountered before, brought here by the drastic ecosystem changes Team Rocket had caused, or maybe a crystal somehow elevated to the surface from underground, though Yellow couldn't think of a probable way for that to happen. With such a limited range of options, there was a high likelihood that whatever it was would be worth looking into. "Let's check it out."

She felt Red shrug. "Okay. It can't hurt, I guess."

They hobbled toward the bush where Red had seen the shimmer and knelt down to the best of their ability (Yellow managed to bend her good knee slightly and prop herself up with a hand resting on Red's hunched over back). He reached forward and parted the bush, carefully, so that if there was a Pokemon within, it wouldn't be startled and attack.

Instead of a Pokemon, however, on the ground within the bush lay two white devices that looked remarkably like wristwatches. Each had, in the place where the watch face would normally sit, a rhombus-shaped yellow crystal with a lightning emblem in the middle. Yellow stared at the wristbands for a second or two, processing the details, before a flurry of thoughts came to her. She was surprised to find that, in contrast to the cacophonic whirlpool of confused ideas that had torn apart her mind for days, the thoughts she had now were far more organized. She voiced the first one that seemed relevant. "Are those... thunderstones?"

Red shrugged. "I don't think so. Thunderstones are usually green with a yellow bolt, not yellow with black. But I'm honestly not sure. Maybe there's a different variation, or an artificial one, that's shown up. I honestly haven't kept track since I evolved Vee permanently. Though I can't imagine why someone would want to put a one-use thing on their wrist..."

Yellow considered that. "Maybe it's like the one you had a few years ago–infinite uses and all."

Red shook his head. "No, there's only one of those, and I've still got it with me." He frowned, his eyes locked on the wristbands. "That symbol could be a warning, too. I'm wondering if these things are high voltage or something..."

"I guess there's no way to know unless we're willing to get electrocuted," Yellow reasoned. "I don't think it's worth taking the risk."

Red shrugged once more. "Yeah, it wouldn't be, unless I had some way to neutralize that electricity." He grinned, glancing at Yellow. "Did I ever tell you about my electricity-proof gloves?"

She raised her eyebrows. "I don't think that ever came up."

He chuckled. "Got them from Lt. Surge a long time ago–unwillingly, of course." Reaching out, he grabbed the two wristbands, held them for a few seconds, and then nodded. "They're fine. My hands would be heating up by now if they weren't." He tossed one to Yellow and stood up, resuming their former position.

Yellow turned the device over repeatedly in her hands, observing its various features. It was made up of mostly whites and grays, with a few black accents here and there. She noted again its similarities in shape to a wristwatch, made up of nearly identical segments with one larger face. It was some sort of metal, obviously made to be very sturdy and hard to remove unintentionally, though despite its durability, it weighted surprisingly little. The rhomboid yellow crystal, upon a second glance, though well fitted, appeared to not be part of the device itself, though Yellow couldn't find a mechanism to remove it.

Her observations would have ended there, if this had simply been a metal contraption. Because she was thoroughly dissociated from any sort of technological or mechanical know-how, she couldn't figure anything else out by just looking at the device. Perhaps if Green had been there, or maybe that kid with the weird hair–Emerald if she recalled correctly–from Hoenn, they would have concluded something about the purpose of the wristband. However, it was precisely that dissociation from technology and firm entrenchment in nature that allowed Yellow to sense the device's peculiarity.

As she held the wristband, she could feel a strange energy coming from it with a pulsing regularity. The strange thought came to her that it was a heartbeat, though she couldn't decide whether that reassured her or terrified her. However, despite the strangeness of the energy, she quickly realized that it felt familiar. Her breath caught in her throat when the revelation hit her that this energy was of a similar sort to the life force of the Viridian Forest to which she was so attuned. Her fingers trembled, threatening to lose their grip in shock from the magnitude of her discovery. This device, though made of metal, tapped into the collective heartbeat of nature itself.

Yellow looked at Red, who was eyeing the wristband he held with confusion. She knew he didn't figure it out– _couldn't_ figure it out–as naturally as she had. He didn't carry the curse... no, the gift... of Viridian. He needed help to understand. "Can you feel anything?" she prompted.

"Nah, not much," he admitted. "It's kinda cold, but I think that's just because it's been sitting out in the storm for a while."

Yellow nodded. He wouldn't be able to feel the pulsing if she didn't point it out to him. So, ignoring his surprised reaction, she took his hand and placed it against her chest, right over her heart. Then, she focused on synchronizing herself with the Forest.

She was weak–deprived of sleep and emotionally drained–and so she was unable to manifest her connection in any physical way. Healing a Pokemon was out of the question unless she wanted to put herself into a coma. She doubted whether she could even read her Pokemon's thoughts without passing out. However, despite her weakness, she could still feel her connection to the Forest she called home, and that was all she needed. As she tapped into it, she felt her heart rate shift until it beat as one with the Forest, and now the device.

"Can you feel my heartbeat?" she asked Red, staring into his eyes.

He blinked, obviously still confused. "Well, yeah, but I don't see how that's going to–"

"Hold the thing," Yellow advised. "One hand on me, one hand on it."

"Uh... okay," Red agreed, obliging. One second passed. Two. Three. Then... "Oh," Red muttered. Then louder, "Oh." He looked at Yellow, a slight smile on his face–the kind one gets when both amazed and faced with incredible strangeness. "That's weird. Cool, but weird."

"You feel it?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I do."

"That's the rhythm of the Forest–of nature itself," Yellow explained. She knew she could never make him understand completely. This was something that only she and the other children of Viridian could know. The other children, like Lance.

She paused, her thoughts stopping cold as she came to a shocking realization. She'd just thought about Lance without any sort of reaction, as though the topic was something casual. She knew that even a passing mention of his name should send her into a panic attack, that it should all but stop her heart, turn her pale, and freeze her muscles. And yet, even with that conscious knowledge, her body simply refused to react. The name radiated cold in the core of her very being–the cold of darkness and death. But a more powerful radiation eradicated the icy claws, one that began in her heart and spread outward, so that even the tiniest muscles at her fingertips felt energized. That warmth, she realized, began at the very place where Red's hand touched her chest.

"That's... huh," Red began. "That's pretty heavy stuff. So I guess these things are important?"

Yellow nodded. "I think so, but I don't yet know how."

He looked at his device once more. "Do you suppose we should take them with us?"

"Probably. We can probably wear them like watches until we need to take them off."

"Cool." He paused, like he couldn't figure out how to phrase his next thought. "Can... uh... can I have my hand back?"

With a jolt, Yellow realized she was still holding Red's hand in place over her heart, and her grip had tightened slightly, reluctant to let it go. A new, red warmth grew on her cheeks and ears as she quickly relinquished her grip. "Y-yeah... sorry."

He grinned. "No problem. So how do we...?" he muttered, turning his attention to his wristband. "What if I just..." Yellow watched as he slid his fingers into the band, and then his hand, and then his wrist, where he let the device sit. He frowned. "That's... weird. It fits perfectly."

Yellow could see the problem in that. If the wristband had been large enough to fit over Red's hand, it should have been far larger than his wrist. Curious, she repeated his process, and found that her device had the same skintight properties, fitting around her wrist as though it had been made specifically for her. "Do you think we should be worried about it?"

He shrugged. "I don't see the point. I'm just glad it feels good."

She nodded. "I guess that makes sense. But the first sign something is wrong, we should take them off."

"Got it."

And so they set off again, hobbling unsteadily through the dark woods. It had begun to rain again, and though the forest's canopy did a decent job at shielding them from the freezing torrent, eventually the dismal droplets began to drip through the leaves. And yet Yellow was still warm. With Red's arm around her and his shoulder pressing against hers, the pinpricks of ice couldn't even make her flinch.

However, she did flinch as they came across a horrible sight. Trees were knocked down in a path of destruction, splintered at the bases into haphazard bends, some hit by something so forcefully that the trunk was severed from the roots entirely. And, most chilling of all, in the midst of the destruction lay the unconscious forms of Blue and Green.

"Oh... God..." Red muttered, his arm around Yellow's shoulders tightening in shock. "What...?"

"Come on!" Yellow ordered, pointing at their fallen friends. "We have to help them!"

Red's eyes hardened in the same focused way they did when he was faced with an important battle–steeled by the determination of having a necessary goal. "Right."

They made their way over to the other two as quickly as possible, Yellow vaulting on one leg over fallen tree trunks when necessary, and knelt down beside them. The damage was even more shocking up close. Both seemed to still be breathing, which alleviated a great amount of Yellow's worry, but despite that reassurance, their wounds were jarring.

Green was bleeding from a cut on his head, the blood matting his hair and mixing with the rainwater pooled on the ground. His cape had been ripped off at some point, and his shirt had many holes ripped into it, through which Yellow could see cuts and gashes with various degrees of depth. Nothing looked fatal, though the head would, if left untreated, could spell trouble.

Blue was similarly battered, though her scrapes were more obvious, since both her arms and a great portion of her legs were uncovered. Because of this, Yellow could see that her wounds weren't caused by a blade of any sort, but by a rough, blunt object, as though someone had coated their fist in rock and struck her. Blood trickled slowly out of the corner of her mouth, indicating something had struck her stomach with a great deal of force.

"What... happened?" Red asked, his voice barely a whisper. "What could have...?"

"Guz...ma..." a rough, strained voice croaked. Yellow realized with a start that it was coming from Blue, who was apparently still conscious, though Green was not. She had opened her eyes and was now attempting to speak. She coughed, clearing her throat. "Guzma," she said, her voice now clearer. "He... he's got the thing."

Yellow waited for her throat to clench up, but it never happened. Red still provided her warmth, despite the terrible circumstances. "Did he...?" she asked. "Did he do this?"

Blue nodded, then grimaced like it caused her pain. "Yeah. That thing... it's so strong. It and Guzma wiped the floor with us... _both_ of us."

Red's eyes narrowed further. "Uh oh," he muttered, almost inaudibly. Yellow agreed. If Blue and Green, two of the strongest trainers in the world, couldn't take down the phantom working together, it was virtually unbeatable.

"Can you stand?" she asked.

Blue shook her head, then grimaced again. "No. I... I'm way too bruised. Everything hurts. If I stand up... I might pass out, like him." Yellow understood. Green, determined to continue the fight, had tried to get up, and had rendered himself unconscious from fatigue in the process.

"We have to go after it," Red said grimly. "We don't have any choice. If that thing gets any farther..." He shook his head, and Yellow knew he was imagining this destruction on a larger scale. "We can't let it get any farther. Where is it?"

"That way," Blue answered, pointing to her left with her eyes, toward where the trail of destruction continued deeper into the forest. "It can't be too far. Guzma... I think he said something about opening another portal."

Yellow chewed her tongue. If another portal opened... if another angry spirit got out... "Then we've got to stop him. Will you be okay?"

Blue nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine. But..." Suddenly, she lunged forward with one hand towards Yellow, seizing her wrist and gripping it like a vice. Her blue eyes blazed with sudden vigor. "Just a Pokemon," she said, staring directly into Yellow's eyes. "It's just... a..." Her grip slackened and her eyes glazed and closed. She fell backwards onto the ground, unconscious. She'd used the last of her energy to give that message.

Yellow and Red were both silent for a few moments, processing the exchange. Eventually, they were forced to conclude that they had no idea what Blue had meant. Yellow knew that that statement meant something, though. Blue wouldn't have wasted her consciousness on something irrelevant. She'd been trying to tell them... no, not both of them, specifically Yellow... something important. But despite her best efforts, Yellow couldn't figure it out. Somehow, she couldn't piece the importance of the words together.

However, time would not wait for her, and neither would Guzma. With a quick nod of determination to each other, she and Red began to hobble-sprint down the path of destruction the phantom had left in its wake.

As they continued, the destruction only got worse. Now the tree trunks not only lay strewn on the ground, but had been severed in two or more pieces, so that the floor of the Forest was now littered with miscellaneous bits of destroyed bark. The rain began to grow in intensity as well, a slow drizzle of liquid ice boring its way through the canopy.

With each drop of the frigid water sliding down her spine, Yellow grew tenser. She knew this was it. She was about to come face to face with her demon–with Lance. Her heart began to beat faster with panic at the thought of the impending confrontation–one where she might not escape alive. The concept of her demise, which, until the last hour or so, had become as good as a certainty in her mind, now rushed back into her thoughts. The paranoia that had become a habit–the knowledge that at any moment the phantom could rush at her, and constrict her throat, and choke her until the darkness at the edges of her vision became all that she could see –stepped back into her mind as easily as though it had never left. Her thoughts began to cloud again, dark smog filling her consciousness until she couldn't think of anything besides the cold rain, the surrounding shadows, and her impending death.

But then, suddenly, with the force of a sword and the gentleness of an embrace, Red's squeeze of her shoulder cut a swath of the fog away. He glanced at her. "We're going to be fine," he reassured, seeming to mean every word. "We can do this." And as simply as that, Yellow's panic melted, replaced by a steely determination, fortified by the warm feeling growing and radiating in her heart.

Those words couldn't have come at a better time, because moments later, the trail of destruction ended, and Yellow found herself facing what she'd dreaded for days. In front of her and Red, in an unnatural clearing caused by even more decimated trees, stood Guzma, holding his device, and hovering above him was none other than the phantom.

The uneven footfall she and Red had made on the soggy grass below when they had approached the clearing drew Guzma's attention, and he turned toward them with an expression somewhere in between irritation and arrogance, both accentuated by his skull-like face. "Oh, it's you two again. I thought I beat you so bad you couldn't get up." He turned his attention to Yellow, unable to stand on her own, and his manic grin stretched farther. "Oh, never mind. It looks like I did."

While he spoke, the phantom turned towards them as well, and struck up its eerie whistling again. This time, however, it was more intense–purposeful. The demon had a goal–a target for its wrath. Yellow didn't know where its eyes were, but she could feel them boring a hole straight into her. There was no doubt in her mind. The phantom–Lance's vengeful ghost–desired nothing more than to end her life in the same violent way she'd ended his.

"Well, you're too late to do... whatever you were going to do, anyway," Guzma continued, seemingly oblivious to the phantom's anger. "I made a few more adjustments to this thing with the data from the wormhole that got this thing..." He pointed carelessly at the hovering demon. "...here, and now I can open another one that won't collapse no matter how many of these things come through." He shrugged. "So, basically, y'all are screwed."

Red scowled and drew a poke ball. "Says you."

Guzma shrugged, grinning again. "What are you and your little crippled girlfriend gonna do about it when you can't even beat Iso?" He barked a laugh. "In fact, I think I should just get rid of you right now. Can't say it's been nice knowing you." He turned his sunken eyes up towards the phantom, which was wailing with barely suppressed rage. "All right, thingy, kill 'em." The demon, happy to oblige, began to hover slowly, menacingly, just as in Yellow's nightmares, towards her and Red.

Things seemed to slow down. Yellow came to several realizations in a matter of milliseconds. Suddenly, faced with the incarnation of all the terror that had haunted her mind since she'd watched the first rip in reality open, what Blue had been trying to tell her finally clicked. The deathly white phantom that drifted, wailing, toward her like a slow guillotine was not Lance's vengeful ghost, nor any ghost at all. It was a Pokemon. Just a Pokemon.

With that one understanding, despite the danger she still faced, the lead weight that had sat on Yellow's chest for so many days suddenly lifted, and she found she could finally breathe again. Reassured that the thing that had become, for her, the physical embodiment of death itself had no power whatsoever over her soul, her wavering heart and mind, which had been until now like a candle flickering in heavy wind, now sat still. The bridge under her feet stood as solid as though it were paved road, and she had finally crossed the abyss it stretched over. The swell of the wave beneath her had deposited her safely onto the shore. The icy water under which she had been forcibly submerged had vanished, and the reprieve she had experienced so rarely now lasted forever. The danger she had perceived for so long was, in fact, no danger at all.

This realization led seamlessly into the next. With her heart unrestrained, she felt new, raw energy seep into her body from both the Forest, and, surprisingly, the device she wore on her wrist, overriding her exhaustion. Her heartbeat fell smoothly into synchronization with the rhythm of nature that she shared with her Forest and the strange wristband, and suddenly, without warning, her home and the device aligned, and Yellow knew exactly what to do.

"Follow my lead," she said to Red, giving him a short hug of reassurance around his shoulders and separating from him to free her arms. Despite the pain in her ankle, she stood squarely on both feet. The energy that flowed through her overrode the pain. She would feel it later, but now it may as well not exist. The warmth that Red's touch had provided her in the depths of her cold despair filled her entire body, despite their lack of contact. It bubbled up from her heart and radiated outward, so that it seemed impossible that the drizzle that seeped through the canopy and soaked her didn't evaporate on contact.

Yellow sent out Chuchu, and was glad when Red sent out Pika to mimic her. Her next motions followed instructions that she didn't think of on her own, and from an outsider's perspective may have even looked silly, but inside she knew without a doubt that the cues came from the Forest she echoed and the device on her wrist, and that they were the exact right things to do.

She began to perform what must have looked like a little dance, but she knew that with each motion she was channeling yet more power from a source that few others had ever gotten the chance to comprehend. As she moved, she glanced over at Red, and smiled when she saw that he followed her movements perfectly, either copying her or following the guidelines from his own device.

Guzma looked at the two of them, first with incredulity, and then with mockery. "What are you morons even doing? You think some little interpretive dance routine is going to be able to stop this thing, or keep me from opening the portal?" He roared with derisive laughter as he hit a button on his remote device and opened another crack in the sky. "Keep going, it's hilarious. You're dead kids walking either way."

Yellow didn't bother answering him. She could see no point, and it might break her concentration. Besides, she was already at the end of the power gathering. Now, there was only one more step. She arranged her arms in a pose resembling the letter 'Z' and glanced down at Chuchu. Her Pikachu looked up at her with confidence, and Yellow sent the power she had gathered into her Pokemon.

Chuchu began to crackle with barely contained electric energy, and a halo of sparks emitted from around her. Yellow nodded, and leveled one arm to point at the phantom. She didn't know from where the next words she and Red spoke in unison came, but they shouted them with the same force and confidence as a war cry. "Gigavolt Havoc!"

The instant after two Pikachu heard the command, the Pokemon let loose with all the electric energy they'd gained, directed full force at the floating phantom, which was, in reality, just a Pokemon. Later Yellow would learn that the damage she and Red had caused was incredible, even for the move they'd used, since the Pokemon they'd hit was part rock type, against which electric type moves had little effect. At the moment, all she could perceive was the sound of catastrophic thunder ripping through the air, battering her eardrums, and a flash of light so bright she thought she might never see again.

When her vision and hearing finally cleared, Yellow blinked at the scene before her. The phantom was gone, either blasted away entirely or knocked through the portal Guzma had created moments before the final attack. That portal was nowhere to be found. The sky overhead, though still dreary, had lost the force with which it had downpoured just minutes ago. The sprinkle leaking through the canopy now felt warm, as though the explosion of energy had imparted to even the clouds the same warmth that radiated from Yellow's core.

In the middle of the clearing, like a black cloud, though even that seemed nonthreatening by now, sat Guzma, knocked off his feet by the attack and cradling the remote device, now charred and melting, evidently destroyed by the explosion. It took him many seconds to speak. Yellow was fine with that. Right then, she felt like she had the strength to stand there for days.

"You," he growled finally, looking up at the two with fury in his eyes. With his skull-shaped face and the vengeful fury in his eyes, he almost resembled a phantom himself. But only almost. "You evil little dirt-eating, disgusting pieces of shit!" He rose as he ranted. "I'll kill you! I'll kill you both for this, do you hear me?! I'm going to make you bleed, and suffer, and beg for mercy, and then I'm going to murder you with my own bare hands!" Obviously the idea of doing so now hadn't crossed his mind, because he spiked the ruined device on the ground and sent out, instead of the goliath Pokemon he'd used earlier, the Abra. His voice took on a note of hysteria as he continued. "I'll go back to Alola. I'll get another one of these portal thingamajigs. I'll let loose every monster that the unholy hand of Satan himself ever conceived of, and I'll set them all on you two! I'll let them torture you within an inch of death, and then I'll choke the last bits of life out of you! You're DEAD, DO YOU HEAR ME?!"

Yellow cocked an eyebrow at Red, who shrugged.

Guzma was silent for a moment, seething in his own fury. Eventually, he must have decided that anything else he could say would be redundant, or else had the passing thought that Yellow and Red might have some other powerful attack up their sleeves, because he picked the Abra up like a rag doll and thumped it in the head. "Get me out of here."

And just like that, the man responsible for the Forest's jeopardy was gone.

It took a moment for the implications of that to hit Yellow's mind. A few moments later, a broad grin broke out across her face. "We won," she said softly. Then, turning to Red, who wore a similar expression, she repeated louder and with more enthusiasm, "We won!" It shortly became a cheer that she repeated a few times. "We won! We won! We won! We won! We... we..."

Her last victory cry cut short when she caught Red's eye. It must have been the triumph of the situation–the excitement that comes after not just surviving a climactic battle, but overcoming the enemy–that was causing both their hearts to race like never before, or their frayed nerves, finally given relief after so long held tense, or some other factor. Either way, it didn't much matter, because quicker than Yellow's conscious brain could comprehend, he was kissing her, and she was kissing him, and their arms were wrapped around each other, holding each other close and never wanting to let go.

Her thoughts jumbled. She thought it was just from the sudden influx of emotions and subsequent abandon of reason, but realized quickly and painfully that the strength that had allowed her to ignore her ankle was ebbing away fast. Still she held on to consciousness for as long as possible, despite the agony radiating up her leg, despite her nervous system rapidly shutting down, and the last thing she remembered as she drifted away into unconsciousness was her and Red together at last, and the pure, warm joy in her heart.

Yellow awoke from her dreamless sleep dazed and confused. A harsh light that she dimly recognized as florescent assaulted her eyes from above where she lay, forcing her to squint and close her eyes again several times, trying to blink the stupor of sleep from them. Her body woke up slowly, her nervous system unresponsive at first, and then ever so gradually trickling feeling back into her system. She realized that the pain in her ankle had reduced to a dull ache. But the one thing that most occupied her mind, more than wondering where she was, or how much time had passed, or why her ankle didn't hurt as badly as it should have, was the feeling of warmth enveloping her hand–warmth she recognized immediately.

Mustering up all her strength and opening her eyes fully, Yellow sat up. She quickly recognized her surroundings as a hospital-like room that looked suspiciously more suited for Pokemon than humans. She guessed that she was in Professor Oak's laboratory, and that he'd tried his best to accommodate an injured human rather than an injured Pokemon. Her foot was set straight again, covered halfway up her shin with bandages and elevated on a pillow at the foot of the bed in which she lay. These observations only took her attention for a quarter of a second, because she quickly turned her eyes on the source of the warmth. At her bedside, gently holding her hand and looking at her with concern sat Red. At the sight of her stirring, he smiled, his worry evaporating. She smiled too.

"Hey," Yellow said, unsurprised to find her voice raspy from extended disuse.

"Hi," he replied. "Glad you're awake."

"Me too," she agreed. "How is everyone?"

"Blue and Green are doing fine," he answered. "The Professor bandaged them up pretty well, and they're healing quickly."

"That's good." She nodded slowly, relieved her friends were okay. "I was worried about them."

"Me too," he agreed. "It looked a lot worse than it actually was. Just a few bruises and cuts."

"That makes sense," she conceded. "The blood made it look pretty bad."

"Yeah." His eyes flitted down to her ankle. "Your foot was pretty far out of place. The Professor managed to twist it back to where it's supposed to be, but he thinks the bones will take a while to heal."

"I guess that makes sense." She shrugged. "That's not so bad. I'll just be on crutches for a few months, then. What about Guzma?"

"He's been missing since he teleported away," he informed her. "The Professor figures he's gone back to that Alola place he mentioned. The Professor has a contact there, so he's going to look into it further."

"That's great," she said. "I'm glad we managed to get him out of Kanto."

"Yeah." Red was silent for a few long moments. Then, "We... uh... we couldn't find your hat. It got lost in the flood. I'm really sorry."

"Oh, it's fine." She shrugged. "It's probably better it's gone, anyway. I probably wouldn't be wearing it much anymore."

Further silence reigned between them for what felt like an hour. They were both making small talk, going back and forth about uncomplicated things in order to avoid the real issue they both desperately wanted to address yet had no idea how to go about it. Each beat of quiet hid a thousand unspoken words at the tip of each of their tongues. Finally, Yellow, taking a deep breath, plunged in.

"What were you going to say?" she asked. "When you got cut off before. What were you going to say?"

"Oh." Red's face colored. He looked sheepish. "Er, well, you see... I was going to say... um, you know..."

Yellow's face began to burn as well. She leaned forward slightly, moving her eyes closer to his. "What? What were you going to say?"

Red looked both cornered and like he was exactly in the place he'd always wanted to be. "I... um... I was going to say... I... well... I... lo–" He swallowed and took a breath to steady himself. "Yellow, what I was going to say... what I'm saying now... is... I love you."

Yellow's breath abandoned her, but not so much that she couldn't whisper the words, "I love you too."

And then they were kissing again, and Yellow's pulse quickened with excitement. Her heart skipped two beats before picking up faster than it ever had before. The warm feeling at her core intensified, and radiated outward so powerfully she could swear her very skin gave off the warmth of a fire. She felt like she could have stayed like this forever, and was tempted to try until the sound of the door opening drew her attention.

"Oh," Professor Oak's voice said, sounding surprised. "I... well, I guess I can come back later."

Red and Yellow immediately separated, snapping back into the rigid sitting positions, their cheeks alive with embarrassment.

"No, no, Professor," Red said, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. "What's up?"

Professor Oak looked slightly flustered himself, understandable considering what he'd walked in on. Nevertheless he approached Yellow's bedside and sat in the other chair, opposite Red. "I thought I'd tell you a few things I've learned about the whole incident. That is, unless you have... something else you need to do that you don't want me here for?"

Yellow felt her face might melt off if she blushed any more. "No," she answered, her voice roughly and octave higher than usual. "Nothing." Red echoed her response.

The Professor shrugged and grinned. "Well, I suppose the first thing I should say is congratulations! You two managed to stop a major threat to the ecosystem before it got out of hand." He sighed. "But this is where things get complicated. Regarding the devices you picked up in the Forest... My cousin, Samson Oak, who lives in the Alola region, has done a bit of research on them, and come to some interesting conclusions. They're called Z-Rings. It's very odd that they would turn up in the Kanto region, since due to the Alola region's island guardian spirits, they have only ever been found on those islands."

Red frowned. "That's where Guzma is from, right? So couldn't he have gotten hold of a few of them and brought them over here?"

"Perhaps," the Professor conceded. "But according to what Samson knows about Guzma's current relationship with the island guardians, it's unlikely they would bestow one on him, let alone two."

"Then if he didn't bring them," Yellow reasoned. "They just spontaneously appeared in Kanto?" But that didn't seem right, she realized, remembering the connection between the heartbeat of the Forest and the rhythmic pulse of the Z-Ring. That sort of thing didn't happen by random chance.

The Professor shrugged. "I'll admit, it seems implausible. But perhaps the island guardians decided your need was great enough and placed them here." He laughed. "I don't claim to understand how legendary Pokemon think. Either way, it's both incredible that you found them in the first place, and that you were able to use them without any trouble. In Alola, sometimes Z-Ring holders have to practice for years to master a single technique."

Yellow considered telling him about how the Z-Ring and the spirit of the Forest had combined in unison to give her instructions on how to use it. She wondered what he'd think if she told him her hypothesis that the Z-Ring tapped into the heartbeat of nature, just like she did each time she used her connection to Viridian. Ultimately, she decided to keep silent about it all. If she told him, he would just become even more confused and frustrated, just as he had in the past each time he'd tried to understand her powers.

"Either way," the Professor continued. "What's even more remarkable was the creature Guzma summoned. Even Samson hadn't heard of it before. However, he was able to provide a hypothesis, though it's fairly baseless."

Yellow and Red both leaned toward him, interested. "What's he think, Professor?" Red asked.

"Well..." the Professor looked uncomfortable. "There's no real documented evidence of it, but a strange young man by the name of Gladion once told him that a local conservationist group has been attempting to open portals to other dimensions. Samson thinks that whatever you two confronted may have been a being from one of those portals. A being... from another dimension."

The two Pokedex holders were dumbfounded, struck silent in surprise at the idea. "So..." Yellow ventured slowly. "That thing might have been from an entirely different reality?"

The Professor nodded. "Yes. Gladion told Samson that these creatures are called Ultra Beasts, and the conservationist group is conducting research on them and trying to bring them to our world."

Red scowled. "That's stupid. We saw what one of those things did. If any more of them come here, they could destroy the whole region!"

"Yeah," Yellow added, growing more and more concerned as she imagined the level of destruction she'd seen scaled up to the whole Forest, and then to the region, and then to the world. "We have to stop them!"

The Professor looked pleased. "I'm glad you both think that way, because Samson actually requested that you two, Green, and Blue travel to the Alola region to work with him on curbing the Ultra Beast research. I suppose this means you will?"

Yellow thought for a while. She remembered the terror of facing what she'd thought was a vengeful ghost seeking revenge. She remembered the sleepless nights, the detached days, and the terrible cold. Then she recalled Blue's warning that it was just a Pokemon, and the warmth of Red's touch. She imagined facing ten thousand of those creatures, and found herself unafraid. She looked at Red. He nodded. "Definitely, Professor," she said, without a quaver in her voice.

The Professor grinned. "That's excellent! Samson will be glad to hear it. I'll call him after I tell Green and Blue to come upstairs and visit you. They'll be happy you're okay." He made his way back out the door, shutting it behind him.

Red raised his eyebrows at Yellow. "Alola, huh? I guess a visit to the tropics won't be too bad."

Yellow grinned. "Yeah, but I think we'll need some lighter clothing with all that sun."

He shrugged, smiling. "Oh, I don't know. I've heard it can get pretty chilly on the oceans when it's windy."

She laughed, and leaned forward and kissed him, warmth bubbling in her heart. No matter the trials they would face, they were together, and she didn't think she could ever be cold again.


End file.
